


The Doctor and the Pirate

by unniebee



Series: Pirate!verse [1]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: 17th Century Medicine, Alternate Universe - Historical, Drama, M/M, Major Illness, Romance, disturbing images
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:23:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unniebee/pseuds/unniebee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Pardon me,” the man with the teeth says politely. “Do I have the honor of addressing Doctor Zhang Yixing?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Pirate!Exo AU based on [this](http://adamasto.deviantart.com/art/EXO-K-Pirates-364111421) and [this](http://adamasto.deviantart.com/art/EXO-M-Pirates-364112467).

In England, this would have been rare, and cause for alarm. No one would have pounded on his door this late unless it was a real emergency - the English are far too polite for that.

But he’s not in England anymore. He’s in Tortuga, and midnight door-poundings are commonplace. Still, Yixing is a professional, so he rouses quickly, throwing on a dressing gown and lighting a lamp on his way to unlock his front door.

He is greeted by a blinding smile, improbably white teeth flashing in the dim light of his lamp. He blinks myopically.

“Pardon me,” the man with the teeth says politely. “Do I have the honor of addressing Doctor Zhang Yixing?”

Yixing blinks at him again. “I suppose you do have that honor, sir,” he replies, his voice soft and scratchy with sleep. “Is there some emergency?”

The man smiles again, and though it is no less bright, no less handsome, Yixing sees that it is tight around the edges. He’s hiding it well, but this man is worried.

“You have quite the intuition, sir,” he quips, stepping aside. Yixing holds up his lamp higher and the dim circle of light illuminates two men who are supporting a third between them. They all look a bit worse for the wear, but the third man is covered in blood and clearly cannot walk under his own power.

Yixing steps back into the house. “Come in,” he says shortly.

He heads straight back for his treatment room, lighting the lamps on the walls from the one in his hand. He pulls off his dressing gown and rolls up his sleeves - the gown is very finely made, one of the few luxuries he has allowed himself, and blood is difficult to clean from brocade. Besides, this is not the first time he has seen to a patient in his nightshirt, nor is it likely to be the last.

The four men follow him back. “Get him up there,” he says shortly, jerking his chin at the bed. They obey, and Yixing pins his rolled-up sleeves in place and scrubs his hands in the basin, taking a moment to splash water on his face in an attempt to fully waken.

When he turns back, the first man is settling his patient back on the clean white linens and the two men who were supporting him are standing around looking awkward. That won’t do - they’ll get in the way.

“You,” Yixing says, pointing at the taller of the two men. He looks up, and ‘man’ is really a bit inaccurate - he looks barely out of boyhood, large eyes a bit shell-shocked. “There’s a well out back, and two buckets. Please fill them both and bring them to me.”

The young man looks to the first man for confirmation, and receives a nod. He goes. There’s something off about the way he moves, but Yixing doesn’t have time right now to analyze it. “You,” he says to the second man, a little bit smaller, a little bit older, and a little bit better-dressed. “Start a fire, there in the hearth. Please,” he adds as an afterthought. This man does not seem to need permission the way the first did; he just does it. Yixing appreciates that.

Bringing his hand-held lamp close, Yixing begins his examination.

It’s immediately clear that his patient has been in a fight - probably a bar brawl - quite recently. Bruises of varying shapes and densities are beginning to bloom under his skin, and there is what appears to be the shattered remains of a glass bottle embedded in his chest. Following his visual examination is the manual one, and Yixing quickly discovers a number of broken bones - fingers, ribs, foot. The worst, though, is his left shin, the reason he cannot walk.

“You’ve taken quite a beating,” he says conversationally as he reaches for his shears and plans his procedure. The leg must be taken care of first, then the glass; the rest can wait until after.

“You should see the other man,” his patient quips, tossing him a wide and slightly mad-looking pained smile. Yixing ignores him and starts cutting away the laces holding his boot on. It’s a long, long leg, and the boots are quite tall and heavy, so it takes a bit. When the laces are completely sliced through, Yixing sets the shears aside.

The man who first knocked on his door is now leaning against the far wall, watching them with eyes hidden in the shadow of a well-worn tricorn hat. “Will you have to amputate?” he asks quietly.

Honestly, the state of the medical practice in the Caribbean is abhorrent. “Not if I have any say in the matter,” Yixing says shortly as he gathers up the materials he will need from his cabinets. “What’s your name?” he asks his patient as he pulls out gauze, splints and bruise salve.

“Chanyeol, sir.”

“You have any rum in your system, Chanyeol?”

Another mad grin. “Just a couple of pints.”

Yixing nods. “That’ll help. You might want this.” He hands a rolled-up handkerchief to his patient, who takes it and obediently stuffs it between his teeth. Clearly, he has done this before.

Yixing looks to the man who seems to be in charge. “A hand, please?”

Together, they carefully remove Chanyeol’s boot, with only a few pained grunts from the man with the shattered leg. Yixing prods the muscles to gauge Chanyeol’s tension level, then eyes the bone. The good news is that shin breaks are easy to see; the bone is close to the surface. The bad news, unfortunately, is that the bone is so close that the sharp bone fragments have punctured the skin. He doesn’t even have to touch the leg to know where the break is - he can see the blood-covered white of the bone itself.

Yixing lays his hands on the man’s shin and without warning pulls the bone back into alignment. Chanyeol screams, muffled slightly by the cloth in his mouth.

“Shouldn’t you have warned him?” the other man says mildly as Chanyeol pants in pain around the gag.

Yixing doesn’t look up, too busy binding the splints to the sides of his calf. “He would have tensed and it would have been impossible,” he replies shortly. Footsteps make him look up from his work - it’s the boy, bringing back the water. “Into the cauldron over the fire, please,” he says, pointing. He will need a large amount of boiled water for this.

The boy goes, and Yixing stops for a moment to watch him, because yes, there is something wrong with the way he is walking. At first he thinks it is an old injury - in a place like this most men have something that plagues them - but that’s not right. The boy looks like he’s dizzy, like he’s having trouble walking a straight line.

Yixing looks up at the leader. “Do me a favor and go shine a lamp into your boy’s eyes, there. Tell me what you see.”

He gets a blink of confusion, then it dawns and the man hurries to do as he’s told. He looks into the boy’s eyes and swears heartily.

“Blast it, Jongin,” he says. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Concussion?” Yixing guesses, carefully removing fragments of bone from the hole in Chanyeol’s shin with forceps.

“His pupils didn’t dilate the same, so yes, that would be my guess. How did you know?”

“The way he was walking. You’ll need to keep him awake for at least the next six hours then.”

A snort, from the man tending the fire. “Good luck with that,” he says.

It turns out to be fairly easy, actually, because they’re all up for the next four hours at least while Yixing works. He cleans out and sews up the wound on Chanyeol’s shin and finishes binding the splints; he removes the glass in Chanyeol’s shoulder, cleans and sews those lacerations as well; then he sets and wraps the minor breaks in the fingers and foot; cleans every wound, salves every bruise. Any bit of infection that takes hold now could spread to the weakened bones or into the blood and result in the amputation he is trying to avoid, so he is meticulous in his work. Then, as he instructs Chanyeol how to care for the broken leg in the weeks to come, he examines the boy Jongin as well. As he suspects, in addition to the concussion, there is some neck strain and the boy is hiding a sprained wrist.

Yixing doesn’t need to be told what happened; the lot of them got caught up in a bar brawl and they’re probably all ignoring injuries. He makes the man at the fire submit to an examination and finds some fractured ribs and a black eye that hadn’t yet started developing when they’d first knocked on his door, but when he turns to their leader - their _captain_ , actually, he’d heard them referring to him as such - he is rebuffed.

“You’ve done enough doctoring for one night, Doctor,” the captain says, not unkindly. “You’re falling asleep on your feet. Go to bed. We will watch over our crewmates.”

He protests, but finds himself gently and firmly guided to his bedroom. Before the door closes, he hears “Baekhyun, take Jongin back to the ship.”

Too exhausted to care that these men are _probably_ pirates, and he should _probably_ not leave them alone and unwatched in his home, Yixing falls into bed and is asleep practically before he hits the pillow.

When he next wakens, it is after noon, and the house is empty. He almost thinks he has dreamed the whole thing, except for the blood on his nightshirt and the bag of Spanish doubloons on the treatment bed that equals more than twice what he normally would have charged for four hours of work.

The note next to the bag is written in flowing script. It says simply, _thank you_ , and is signed Captain Suho.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 

It is several months later when Yixing answers the door and sees Captain Suho again. It’s daylight, and Suho is not smiling this time, and so it takes Yixing a moment to recognize him.

“Is your bed free?” Suho asks, and Yixing blinks at him in confusion before he realizes Suho’s talking about his _treatment_ bed. He looks over Suho’s shoulder and sees Chanyeol and another man carrying a makeshift stretcher between them. The condition of the man on the stretcher makes his breath catch.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” he breathes. “Yes, yes, my God, come in.”

He leads the stretcher-bearers to the treatment room and talks them through transferring the patient to the bed as he is performing his scrubbing-up ritual. He is vaguely aware of Suho following them, but frankly he only has eyes for the patient, a short, slim man with wide, glassy eyes and old bandages wrapped around an alarmingly large portion of his ribs and right shoulder. He is clearly feverish, to the point of delirium; there is sweat caked on his brow and he is mumbling incoherently to himself.

“What happened?” Yixing asks shortly, reaching like last time for his shears. “And how long ago?”

“About a month ago now.” Suho’s voice is quiet. “There was an accident when he was loading cannon. Severe burns on his right shoulder and chest.”

“It’s my fault,” the one man Yixing doesn't recognize says. Yixing spares him a glance - he is blond, extremely pretty, and looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks, guilt and worry etched into his face and aging him ten years.

“It’s not,” Chanyeol assures Yixing. “But he won’t stop blaming himself.”

“Hush, boys,” Suho murmurs. “Doctor Zhang, is there anything we can do to assist you?”

“Just Yixing is fine,” he says distractedly as he starts cutting open the bandages. “Let me take a look.”

His first clue that something is very, very wrong is the _smell_. No living man should smell so very like a corpse. He peels the dirtied linen bandages away from the wound to reveal a huge burn, red and bubbled and blistering, stretching from the bottom of the ribcage and all the way up to the collarbone, down the shoulder and bicep nearly to the elbow. The section of the burn on the arm is large and severe but clearly in the process healing on its own; it’s the section on the chest that is in bad shape. The wound is pus-filled and putrid, badly infected, and parts are going necrotic, the flesh blackened and dead.

“We cleaned it as best we could,” Suho says. His voice is soft and close; Yixing glances over his shoulder and sees him standing just behind, his hand resting on the patient’s leg. “But a ship is not exactly the most sterile of sickbays. I’m sorry, we were quite far out. This is the fastest we could make it to shore.”

Yixing nods. “This is a very advanced infection,” he says, keeping his voice calm. The blond man already looks like he’s on the verge of tears; no need to frighten him further. “I will do what I can.” He gauges the size of the wound carefully, estimating.

“Chanyeol,” he says, “are you familiar with the market inland?” He glances up to see Chanyeol nod. “Good. There is a native woman near the bread-sellers who sells honey by the pint. Go buy two pints.”

Chanyeol blinks at him, confused. Yixing shoots him a look. “Quick now!” He starts in surprise, and then takes off, striding out of the room on ludicrously long legs. Yixing is pleased to see his shin has healed well.

“Honey?” Suho asks. Yixing blinks a little before realizing it’s not an endearment, it’s an inquiry. Suho needs to stop hovering behind Yixing, it’s very distracting.

“Honey never goes bad,” Yixing informs him. “It crystallizes after a while but it never spoils, not even after years and years. It’s the only known organic substance that does not spoil.” The arm will be fine on its own; Yixing can simply poultice it and re-wrap it with new, clean bandages. “And so, honey can be used to seal a wound and stop an infection from spreading.”

“It’s...it’s that simple?” The blond’s eyes are hopeful. Yixing gives him his kindest smile.

“I’m afraid it’s not. Do you see these black patches?” He points. The blond nods. “That is death, plain and simple. There is nothing that will bring that flesh back; it must be removed entirely before this man can even begin to heal.”

“Xiumin,” the blond says, voice so soft and forlorn. “His name is Xiumin. And I’m Luhan.”

Xiumin turns his head towards Luhan at the sound of his own name. That’s a good sign - he’s not completely out of his mind, then.

Yixing can’t have Luhan underfoot for this, but neither can he bear to separate them. No matter what Chanyeol says, it’s clear Luhan is blaming himself, and it is equally clear he cares very much for Xiumin. So he asks, “Are you squeamish?”

Luhan looks at him. “Um. Not...particularly?”

Yixing points to the chair. “Pull that over and sit on his other side,” he commands. “This is going to be painful and possibly quite disturbing for him, and in his current mental state, I don’t think he would understand if I tried to explain to him what was happening or why. I need you to distract him.”

Nodding, Luhan does as he is told. Xiumin’s glazed eyes track him as he moves, and he turns his head to listen when Luhan starts speaking to him softly, his good hand held between Luhan’s.

Satisfied with that, Yixing turns to Suho. “Are _you_ squeamish?” he asks.

The captain meets his eyes squarely. “No.”

He’d guessed as much. “There is a waste barrel on the side of the property,” he murmurs, keeping his voice very low. He pulls an empty, wide-mouthed brown glass jar from his cabinet. “I need you to bring me live maggots. Just enough to cover the bottom of this jar.”

Suho’s eyes widen. “What?”

Yes, that’s the usual reaction. Rather _calmer_ than the usual reaction, actually.

“Maggots eat dead flesh,” he explains patiently. “Trust me when I say it will be far cleaner and less painful than if I try to surgically remove the necrosis.” He presses the jar into Suho’s hands.

To his credit, the captain does not hesitate further. He takes the jar, clenches his jaw, and goes.

While he waits, Yixing carefully cleans the wound as best he can. Maggots prefer a damp environment, so he prepares a saline solution in case the wound is too dry and they reject it.

He tries not to eavesdrop on Luhan, but it’s hard not to catch snatches of what he’s saying. It seems he’s recounting stories of their adventures on the high seas, familiar stories that Xiumin probably already knows, that even in his delirium he could understand and follow. Smart man.

It’s really what Luhan is _not_ saying that movies Yixing, though. Their friendship is quite touching, and makes Yixing even more determined to save this man.

Suho returns with the jar, and Yixing sets to work. He starts with the biggest patch of dead flesh, high on the chest and shoulder, carefully using forceps to transfer the insects a few at a time.

They don’t move away from the wound, settling down immediately, which is a good sign. He continues transferring until the container is empty and Xiumin’s shoulder looks like a crawling, wriggling nightmare.

When he is done, he looks up. Luhan’s face has paled, but he’s still talking, his eyes fixed on Xiumin’s. He’s got one hand tangled in Xiumin’s hair, gently encouraging him to keep his face turned away from the burn so he does not see the hellish image of his own skin. Satisfied with that, Yixing puts down his tools and stretches out his hunched shoulders.

Suho, who has been watching from the corner, holds up a jar of honey. “Yeol came back,” he says quietly. “I kept him out of the room.”

“Probably smart,” Yixing murmurs back. Chanyeol strikes Yixing as the type to make a scene when confronted with something disturbing. “You don’t need to stay, you know. Maggots don’t eat very quickly; this will take some time.”

“I don’t mind staying,” Suho replies. “Baekhyun can handle the ship just fine in my absence. And it seems I learn something new every time I see you.” He jerks his chin at the wound. “If I’d known that, I would have done it right away,” he says, and he sounds upset with himself. “We have maggots a-plenty on the ship.”

Yixing huffs out an amused breath. “Mine are cultivated specifically for this,” he points out. “Some maggots only eat dead flesh, some eat only live, and some eat both. If you use the wrong breed you only magnify the problem.”

“Ah.” For the first time, Suho looks a bit ill. “See? I learn so much from our encounters.”

That brings a smile to Yixing’s face. “Let me make us some tea, then.”

It is a full day before the dead tissue is gone, during which time Yixing changes the squirming dressing half a dozen times and sleeps in short catnaps while Suho keeps watch over Xiumin and Luhan. When he is satisfied with the progress of the wound, he cleans the maggots away, coats the wound in the honey and dresses it, bandaging it securely. Xiumin’s fever already appears to be waning; he is asleep more than he is awake now and the delirium seems to have mostly passed.

Over the next few days, the other members of the crew stop by in ones and twos, checking on Xiumin and on Luhan who refuses to leave his side. Yixing re-examines Chanyeol’s leg and Jongin’s wrist; both men are young and strong and have healed well. He meets Sehun and Chen, Kyungsoo and Kris and Tao, and at one point Baekhyun even stops by, during one of the few times that Suho returns to the ship.

It surprises him to learn that ...that is it. That’s every member of their crew. A total of eleven men, the oldest maybe just past his thirtieth year.

“You have the smallest pirate crew I have ever heard of,” he tells Suho one evening as they take supper. “How do you manage to run a ship with less than a dozen men?”

Suho grins. Now that Xiumin is improving, his blinding smiles are back. “They are very good at what they do,” he says. “And, well...it isn’t a very large ship.”

Yixing laughs and sets his utensils down on his plate. Supper was brought in from Suho’s favorite tavern down the road, on Suho’s coin. The captain has been treating Yixing quite often during his stay, despite Yixing’s protests. “I suppose that explains why you don’t have a surgeon on board,” he comments offhandedly. Most pirate vessels, after all, employ a doctor or surgeon of some description, and injuries like Xiumin’s are precisely why.

Dark eyes meet his. “Have you ever fancied the sea, Yixing?”

“When I was a boy, I nearly joined the Navy,” he admits. “My mother convinced me to go to medical school instead.” He ducks his head, huffing a humorless laugh. “For all the good that has done me.”

“The British Navy?” Suho asks. Yixing nods, not surprised Suho has guessed his nationality - if his accent doesn’t give him away, his penchant for tea does. Suho himself sounds like a Colonist, possibly New England. “Then how did you end up in Tortuga?”

“Ah. That, my friend, is a long story.” Yixing gets up to put the kettle on; he’s been going through his special blend of calming tea quite quickly with Luhan around. “How current are you on the political events in England in the last five years?”

Dark eyes regard him curiously. “I hear the gossip,” Suho says. “Sometimes not until months or years after the fact, but it gets down here eventually.”

“Then you will have heard of the ill-fated rebellion.”

Suho’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “I cannot picture you a rebel against the Crown,” he says in surprise.

Yixing dimples at him from the stove. “You know me better than I had expected, sir,” he says. “Truth, I was not a rebel. Nor, though, was I a Royalist. I simply was of the opinion that if a man has a rifle ball in his gut, it is a doctor’s duty to treat him.”

“I see,” Suho says slowly. “You treated the wrong man.”

“At least in the eyes of the King,” Yixing confirms, nodding. “And so I was arrested as a sympathizer. I was one of the lucky ones who were sold to the Jamaican slavers; many were sentenced to death on the spot.” He returns to his seat to wait for the kettle’s whistle. “Upon transport our ship was caught in a hurricane and sunk. A handful of us were rescued by a French merchant ship, and with my services as a doctor I was able to barter passage here.” He shrugs. “And here I have stayed.”

Suho leans the chair back onto its back legs. “The King’s loss is Tortuga’s gain,” he says with another handsome smile. “I dread to think what would have happened had you not seen to Xiumin.”

He would have been dead within the week. But Yixing does not say that, instead observing, “If I may...you are quite protective of your crew. Moreso than one would expect of a pirate captain. Is there a reason?”

The captain’s dark eyes drop to the table. “More than my crew,” he explains, “they are my brothers.” He glances back up, his smile a fleeting shadow of its usual brightness. “If I am completely honest with you, we are pirates in name only, in that we have no country, sail under no nation’s colors. We manage with such a small crew because we do not go after the fat targets, but rather the small ones, with less riches but also less guns. We run more often than we fight. It is a dangerous life, but not a reckless one, and I have never lost a man. I hope I never will.”

They both know the chances of that are slim. “I hope so as well,” Yixing says anyway, because what does a man have, but his hope?

“Come with us,” Suho suddenly offers. “Our chances would be greatly increased with a doctor aboard.”

Yixing blinks. He hadn’t been expecting an offer, though perhaps he should have been, and has no answer. Join a pirate crew? Him?

Suho seems to take his hesitation as rejection. “You don’t need to sign the articles,” he says quickly. “Doctors often do not. I will pay your salary myself.” He looks so hopeful, but it is a big decision, one that changes literally everything about Yixing’s life.

“Allow me to think on it,” he hedges. Suho looks like he is about to protest, but thankfully does not.

And think on it Yixing does. For the next few days, he watches Suho’s crew together and tries to imagine himself one of them. Because if he was to join a pirate ship, it would be as a full member of the crew, bound by the articles just like the rest, and not as a doctor-for-hire pulling a salary regardless of whether the rest of the crew prospered or starved.

But there are too many unknowns, too many questions, too many dangers. And frankly, the idea of getting back on a ship, after the horrors he lived through the last time...He can’t do it.

He tells Suho as much, the night before they leave. The captain, who has become a good friend in the past two weeks, looks disappointed but not surprised.

“The offer remains open,” he says as Kris and Chanyeol are moving Xiumin to the stretcher for his trip back to the ship. Luhan is with them, a pack on his back filled with everything he will need to continue to care for Xiumin and the letter detailing doctor’s orders clutched in his hands. He hasn’t stopped smiling since Xiumin’s fever broke.

“Thank you,” Yixing says, sincerely. “If I ever have the urge to take to the sea, rest assured the Two Moons will be my first choice of vessel.” He hasn’t even seen the ship, but he feels as though he knows it just from the stories of Suho and his crew. “And you are always welcome here, whether you need a physician or not.”

Suho shakes his hand firmly and smiles bittersweet. Yixing wants to drag the man forward, to embrace him, but he does not. He simply returns the smile and watches as Suho follows his crew down the path and out of sight.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 

Despite their genial parting, it is over a year before Yixing sees the crew of the _Two Moons_ again. At first, Yixing thinks of them often, wondering where they are and what trouble they are into, wondering if he passed up a chance he should have taken. But months and months go by, and Yixing all but forgets about them entirely.

So when a slightly drowned-looking Baekhyun appears on his doorstep one evening during a fierce storm, with a sopping wet and alarmingly solemn Chanyeol at his side, it takes Yixing a moment to recognize them, and another moment before the dread hits him across the chest like a physical blow.

“It’s the captain,” Baekhyun says, confirming Yixing’s worst fear. “He’s taken ill. We didn’t want to move him in this storm, can you come?”

Yixing goes, of course.

The _Two Moons_ is indeed a small ship, single-masted and singularly unimpressive next to the larger vessels in the harbor. She is small enough to get quite close to the docks, though, so Yixing is able to step right onto the ladder from the dock, no rowboat or gangplank necessary.

The captain’s cabin is aftmost, and clearly the largest single room on the ship despite being half the size of Yixing’s bedroom. Luhan is next to the bed, an achingly familiar sight, but this time Xiumin is sitting up next to him instead of the one on the bed. Yixing notes distractedly that the gunner’s arm seems to have regained near-full mobility, though his movements are a bit stilted still. Then he pushes thoughts of his previous patient aside in favor of the one who needs him.

Suho is awake, and flashes a sad imitation of his usual heartstopping smile. “Yixing,” he says softly, his voice scratchy and weak.

“Good evening, Captain,” Yixing says, reaching out to take Suho’s hand. His skin is clammy and cold, his grip frail, but he closes his fingers around Yixing’s. Suho opens his mouth again, but Yixing hushes him. “Please don’t try to speak right now,” he says. “Until I have a diagnosis, it may be doing more harm than good.”

Suho looks torn between annoyance and amusement, but quickly exhaustion wins out and he does as he is bade, letting his head drop back against the pillows. Yixing looks across the bed to Luhan and Xiumin.

“What are his symptoms?” he asks.

Luhan pulls out a piece of parchment and starts listing them, along with when each began. Apparently he learned something from his stay with Yixing, because the records he has kept are most helpful, and Yixing quickly starts to put together the picture. At first the illness presented as a common cold, but it grew steadily worse in the past weeks, and when Suho collapsed on deck in convulsions a week ago the crew confined him to his cabin and made straight for Tortuga.

It’s the convulsions that tip Yixing off.

“You say he has had an intermittent fever?” Yixing asks. Luhan nods. “How often?”

Luhan looks at his notes. “Every two days,” he says slowly. “Its...it’s exact. Like clockwork. How did I not notice that?”

“You weren’t looking for it,” Yixing assures him gently. “And between the fevers?”

“Cold.” Suho huffs out a breath from the bed, his fingers tightening around Yixing’s. “Middle of July in the Caribbean and I’m shivering like a street urchin in a Boston winter.” He starts coughing, as if to emphasize his point; ugly hacking phlegmy coughs.

Yixing bites his lip.

“Doctor?” Xiumin is the one to break the silence, to ask the question. “Is it...is it bad?”

“It may be,” he says softly, squeezing Suho’s hand in what he hopes is a reassuring way. Luhan makes a small noise, and Xiumin wraps an arm around his shoulders comfortingly. “Captain, a favor please?” Suho blinks at him. His gaze is steady, which is reassuring; in very advanced cases sometimes the eyes dance disconcertingly. “Follow my finger with your eyes. Try not to move your head.”

Suho does as he is bade, and Yixing’s fear is confirmed - his eyes do not track correctly.

Yixing lets out a long breath. “What you have done to see to his comfort is correct,” he assures Luhan. “Please continue to watch over him for me. I will return shortly.” He gently untangles his fingers from Suho’s and leaves the room.

Baekhyun is waiting outside the room, looking haunted.

“Is there somewhere we can speak in private?” Yixing asks. Baekhyun nods and leads him to a cabin down in the fore of the ship. The second mate and bo’sun Kris is inside, reading reclined on one of the two thin bunks. He sits up immediately when Yixing enters.

“Shall I leave?” Kris asks. Baekhyun looks to Yixing, who shakes his head.

“No need,” he says. Better that the first and second mates, as the remaining leadership of the crew, both be present for this.

Baekhyun gestures at what must be his own bunk, and Yixing sits. Baekhyun himself remains standing, leaning on the wall next to Kris’s bunk. “Well, Doctor?”

Heavens. Yixing runs a hand through his hair. “It’s malaria,” he says softly. “The convulsions and the paroxysmal cycles are textbook.”

Baekhyun’s eyes flutter shut. “God in Heaven,” he breathes. “Will he recover?”

That is the question, isn’t it? “If treated correctly, malaria is curable,” Yixing hedges. “However, he has gone untreated thus far, and the disease is taking hold in his brain. I believe he can be saved,” he says, before Baekhyun can call on God again. “But it will take time. Possibly, quite a _long_ time.”

Baekhyun is silent. It’s Kris who asks, “What do you suggest?”

And this is the part where he needs their cooperation. “I suggest that you leave Suho behind with me.” Two pairs of eyes widen and both start protesting, but Yixing quickly assures them, “Not permanently! Just while he recovers. Let us suppose...a year.”

“You think it will take him a _year_ to recover?” Baekhyun asks, incredulous.

How to explain? “It will likely take weeks and weeks for treatment to eradicate the disease, and possibly weeks more before Suho is recovered enough strength to be galavanting around the world,” he says. “But malaria is conniving. It can lurk dormant in the body and remerge months after the patient seems to recover, if the treatment is not thorough enough. My fear is that once he considers himself recovered, Suho will take off for adventure, and find himself too far away for treatment should a relapse occur months later. Have I judged his character correctly?”

Kris and Baekhyun exchange a look. “You have indeed,” Kris says, a touch of amusement in his deep voice. “It seems you know our Captain well.”

Not really; men of adventure are all the same in that regard. No one chooses the life of a sailor, pirate or no, unless they have a wanderer’s heart. But Yixing lets them think what they please.

“There is no need to move him tonight, in this horrid weather,” Yixing says. “Malaria is not a pitched battle, it is a siege; one more night without treatment will not make a significant difference. I leave it up to you whether you inform the captain or not, but either way, once he is settled, you must sail away without him. We cannot have the temptation of the ship nearby, and I’m sure you’d prefer the crew not dally in Tortuga for a full year in any case.”

Kris and Baekhyun both agree to his plan, in the end. They decide they will tell the captain once he is off the ship and settled at Yixing’s, so that the crew may bid him farewell.

Yixing stops back at the captain’s cabin to check on Suho, but the man has fallen asleep, exhausted. It gnaws on Yixing’s insides to see him like this, such strength and vitality and personality reduced to pale, sickly, and shivering. It seems he has his work cut out for him.

Seeing as the ship is docked, he does not hesitate to ask to borrow a crewman for the evening. Baekhyun sends Chanyeol out with him, citing that the quartermaster needs to visit the marketplace anyway.

In this weather, at this time of night, Yixing would usually not dare to make the trek inland. The city of Tortuga is not a friendly place at the best of times, but on a night like tonight, the only people in the streets are the ones who have nowhere else to go and nothing to lose. Chanyeol, tall and broad with a massive, basket-hilted scimitar at his hip, is a reassuringly threatening figure by Yixing’s side, and no one bothers them.

Chanyeol stops by a few shops to barter, which Yixing watches with interest. He had wondered how someone like Chanyeol came to be given the rather vital post of ship’s quartermaster, but when he sees Chanyeol barter he understands. His loud, brash demeanor, coupled with his winning smile, seem to have nearly all of Tortuga simultaneously charmed and afeared. No one dares attempt to cheat him and several merchants seem to even compete for his business, offering extras and deals.

Yixing takes advantage of this, riding on the coattails of Chanyeol’s haggling to procure some extra supplies for himself. After all, he’s about to be supporting two men, one very sick, on wages that have previously supported one. The provisions can’t hurt.

Once Chanyeol has arranged for the supplies to be delivered to the ship, Yixing leads him down to the very end of the market, then through the back alleys to the little hovel that is his reason for his visit tonight.

The powder he needs is rare, imported, and extremely expensive, and he is going to need a lot of it. The family in this hovel are immigrants, former slaves from the southern Americas who were escaped like he, and they are the only dealers in such things that he knows of. If he is lucky, they will have a supply of cinchona-tree bark on hand. It will be costly and Yixing does not care, because it is the best-known treatment for malarial fevers, and he will _not_ be letting Suho die.

Bartering with the native couple is a challenge, as they speak Quechua, and Yixing himself knows approximately four terms in that language, all of them medicinal herbs. Through gesturing, wordless sounds, and a few stilted words in their common language of Spanish, Yixing manages to communicate what he needs, and to his relief it seems they have a goodly supply on hand - enough, Yixing estimates, for a full two months of treatment. It is a start.

He is surprised, however, when he reaches for his purse and Chanyeol stops him with a hand on his arm.

“This is for the Captain, isn’t it?” he asks. Yixing nods. “Then I’ll pay. You’re already doing enough.”

Yixing does not protest, despite his genteel upbringing insisting he do so. He simply thanks Chanyeol and watches in awe as Chanyeol manages to haggle the price down without speaking even one word in either Quechua _or_ Spanish.

They leave the hut with their precious cargo wrapped in linen and tucked securely under Yixing’s coat and Chanyeol escorts Yixing back to his home.

Chanyeol questions him on the medicine he has purchased - what is it, where does it come from, how does it work, has he ever used it before, where can they find more, on and on. Yixing answers his questions as best he can, but his mind is elsewhere, running over the preparations he needs to make.

He bids Chanyeol good night at his doorstep and immediately funnels the precious powder into a glass apothecary jar, stopping it up tightly to keep it fresh. With that done, Yixing sets about preparing his home for his visitor.


	2. Chapter 2

Suho is not happy with his crewmen when he wakens to discover himself in Yixing’s treatment bed. He calls them a number of extremely unpolite names and loudly declares them in mutiny between wracking coughs. Some of the younger members of his crew seem shaken by this clearly out-of-character behavior, but Baekhyun calmly tells his captain they will be back in a year’s time and that he had better not die in the meanwhile. The knowledge that there is a very real chance this is the last time they will see their captain alive weighs heavily on the entire room, and Yixing leaves them alone to say their goodbyes.

Baekhyun, last to leave, catches Yixing on his way out. He hands Yixing a rather heavy bag of coin and a handwritten parchment with the address of a sympathizer in the Floridian Keys, saying that they will stop there every two months to check for letters and Yixing should keep them appraised of the Captain’s condition. Yixing agrees to write, thanks him again and sees him off. When they are all gone, he opens the door to his back room to check on his patient. Suho is asleep already, his brow glistening with sweat and furrowed uneasily. By the timing Luhan had noted, he will be entering a cycle of fever tonight; Yixing will need to keep an eye on him lest he fall into convulsions again.

For a nearly two weeks, a pattern forms. Suho spends two days in fever, sweating and coughing and sometimes delusional, then he spends two days shivering and weak but awake enough to listen as Yixing sits with him and tells him stories of growing up in Cornwall. Each day, twice a day, no matter whether fevered or chilled, Yixing makes Suho a tea with a tincture of cinchona powder and forces him to drink it all.

In the meantimes, when Suho is asleep, Yixing sees his regular patients in the sitting room and reads every publication on malaria he can get his hands on. As one of the world’s most widespread and deadly ailments, Yixing of course studied malaria in medical school, but as it is not common to either England or the New World he has never seen a case of it in person. The common thread in every account he reads is exactly what he told Baekhyun - fighting malaria is an uphill battle that might take months, and will almost certainly get worse before it gets better.

He’s not wrong. One evening late in the middle of a fever cycle, Yixing hears noises from the treatment room and goes running across the house. Suho is convulsing on the bed, tangled in his blankets and foaming blood-tinged spittle at the mouth.

It’s never a good idea to restrain a convulsing patient, but Yixing manages to get one hand behind Suho’s head just before he works it around to the nightstand. The sharp corner of the heavy, old piece of furniture rips the back of his hand open, but better his hand than Suho’s head. Yixing grabs the blankets wrapped around Suho’s sweat-soaked body and _yanks_. It takes all his strength but he manages to re-center the man on the bed, where his extremities are no longer in danger. That done, he gingerly tugs the blankets until they come loose and fall away, eliminating the danger of Suho ripping them or strangling himself.

Long, long minutes tick by before the convulsions slow and finally stop. Suho is awake, but his eyes are glassy and he is unresponsive when Yixing calls his name.

Yixing checks him over. Pulse racing but steady, breathing a bit labored but strong. The blood in his mouth appears to be from a bitten tongue, nothing serious; the foaming has stopped now that his swallow reflex is again functional. Between the July heat, the fever and the unexpected exercise his skin is flushed deep red and his clothes are soaked through, so Yixing brings over a bowl of cool water and a rag and attempts to bring his body temperature down a bit while he waits for Suho to come back to himself. It’s only a few minutes.

“You’re bleeding,” is the first thing he says, voice hoarse and shaky.

“Just a scrape,” Yixing assures him, soothing the wet cloth over his forehead. “Are you pained anywhere? I came as quickly as I could.”

Suho closes his eyes, taking stock of his body. “Don’t think I hit anything vital,” he murmurs. “Just...tired. And _hot_.” He opens his eyes again, looking up at Yixing. “The rag feels good. Thank you.”

His eyes don’t focus correctly because the right eyeball is twitching minutely.

Yixing hides his dread and nods silently.

 

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As July becomes August and the heat somehow gets even more stifling and unbearable, Suho’s condition worsens. The nystagmus in his eyes becomes more prominent, to the point where Suho himself notices something is wrong with his vision and has trouble keeping his eyes open for long periods, and is joined by increasingly apparent jaundice, giving his skin, eyes and nails a yellowish cast and making Yixing double his intake of water for fear of his liver failing. Suho is asleep far more than he is awake now, and the few moments each day that Yixing can manage to rouse him, he is too exhausted to speak more than a few words.

True to his word, Yixing writes to the crew of the _Two Moons_ with their captain’s progress. He does not gloss over or sugar-coat, but nor does he go into excruciating detail. He writes that though the symptoms are worsening, there is yet hope for a full recovery, and wonders as he seals the letter if maybe he’s not trying to convince himself.

Returning from the docks, where he has paid a goodly amount to ensure the letter, now in the hands of a French mercantile ship, will make it to its destination, Yixing hears frantic gasping from the bedroom and runs to Suho’s side. The captain’s fists are balled in the sheets, his head arched back as he fights to take in enough air, and as Yixing arrives his wide, terrified eyes flick shakily to the door.

“Suho,” Yixing says, keeping his voice as calm as he can possibly manage with his heart about to beat out of his chest. “Listen to me, do exactly as I say.” Suho can’t answer him, but his eyes are more focused as they have been in weeks, so Yixing hopes he’s conscious enough to obey. He scrambles onto the bed and straddles Suho’s hips, carefully keeping his weight held off him, taking one of Suho’s wrists in each hand.

“Breathe in,” he commands, and Suho tries to comply. Yixing lifts Suho’s arms above his head as he does so, opening up his ribcage and aiding his breath. “Hold it for a moment. Alright, now, let it out, slow as you can.” Suho purses his lips in a feeble attempt to control his exhale, and Yixing brings his hands back down and forces them to cross over Suho’s chest, pumping the air out of him like a bellows. “Good man. Again.”

He keeps a careful count as he does so. Sixteen cycles per minute, forcing the lungs to slow down, to fill to capacity and empty completely; forcing the diaphragm to stop spasming. Six cycles in and Suho’s panic begins to fade, his breath stronger and deeper; within two minutes Yixing asks “Has it passed, then?”

Suho lets his breathing cycle return to normal and considers. After a moment, he nods. “Thank you,” he whispers, his voice scratchy and almost non-existent.

Yixing nods and drops Suho’s hands, weak with relief. “You scared me,” he murmurs.

A tiny flash of a smile, frail and precious. “Never...would've...guessed,” Suho breathes. “So...calm.”

Flashing him a smile in return, Yixing points out, “I’m a doctor. A second of panic could cost a patient their life.” He notices a mosquito land on Suho’s flushed skin and gently crushes it with one hand. “Bloody hell. I need some netting if we’re going to keep the windows open like this.”

Suho’s chuckle turns into a coughing fit, and Yixing immediately regrets the comment. He soothes Suho with a hand on his stomach until the hacking ceases. Suho looks up at him, the humor drained from his eyes, yellowed and sweating and far thinner than he should be, and Yixing feels tears prick behind his eyes.

“I’m...dying...aren’t I?” Suho asks.

Yixing grits his teeth and - very unprofessionally - leans down to embrace his patient.

“Not if I can help it,” he mutters. “Captain Suho, I swear on my _life_ I will do everything in my power to make you well again.”

Weak, shaky arms slide around his back, balling desperately in his shirt. “Joon...myun,” he whispers.

Yixing blinks. “What?”

“My...name.” A wheezing cough, right in his ear; Yixing flinches but does not pull away. “Kim...Joonmyun. You should...at least...know...the name...of the man you’re...sworn to save.”

“Shhh, don’t talk,” Yixing murmurs. The sickly rasp of Suho’s - of _Joonmyun’s_ \- voice feels like a death knell. “Alright, then, Kim Joonmyun. You rest now. I’m fighting for you, so that means you have to fight too, understand?” He pulls back and looks Joonmyun in the face. “ _You cannot give up_.”

Because if he does, there will be nothing Yixing can do.

Another sweet, fleeting smile. “Me?” he whispers. “Never.”

Yixing nods, accepting that. He lets Joonmyun go and climbs off the bed, but stays close for a while, reading. They’ve exhausted stories about Yixing’s childhood and have moved on to Yixing reading aloud from books; currently it’s _Gulliver's Travels_. Gulliver has just been found by the Brobdingnagians when Yixing realizes Joonmyun is asleep and puts the book down.

He kills another mosquito, this one on his own arm, and makes his way to the kitchen to prepare dinner and Joonmyun’s medicine.

 

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Three more weeks pass. It’s September now, not that that makes any difference in the Caribbean. The cycles of fever and chills have faded, replaced by extreme weakness and several more respiratory attacks. Yixing has closed his regular practice and employed a boy from town to run errands for him twice a week; he is too afraid to leave Joonmyun’s side. The cinchona has lasted him longer than he expected but he estimates he has perhaps two weeks’ worth left before he needs more.

And Yixing is _tired_.

It’s a bone-deep weariness, the kind that comes from constant worry and no sleep. In the mirror Yixing can see that Joonmyun’s not the only one who’s gotten too pale, too thin; he knows he should be seeing to his own health as well but it’s just that he has found it increasingly difficult to eat in the past month.

Joonmyun wakens for bare minutes each day, his voice basically gone, but somehow, he always manages to smile at Yixing, as if to say, _I’m still here. I’m still fighting_. Those smiles keep Yixing going.

Then, one day, Joonmyun doesn’t wake up.

It isn’t dramatic. Yixing doesn’t even realize anything is wrong, at first. He’s still breathing, resting on the sheets with his head tilted to the right as usual, but when Yixing brings him his morning tea and touches his shoulder, he does not rouse. Yixing pushes at his shoulder, then shakes it, calling his name increasingly loudly until the strain to his voice triggers a coughing fit.

Joonmyun’s slipped into a coma.

Yixing falls to his knees by the bedside, taking Joonmyun’s lax hand in between his own. He’s losing. The disease is winning and he is losing and Joonmyun put his faith in him but it isn’t going to matter, he’s going to die. Joonmyun is going to die.

Yixing weeps for a long time, his face pressed helplessly to Joonmyun’s wrist.

Eventually, the tears dry out. Breathless and wrung out, Yixing drops his lips to Suho’s hand and, for the first time in decades, he prays. Prays to a God he thought had abandoned him years ago, a God he is not sure he ever believed in in the first place, but he needs something now, something to give him the strength to get off his knees and on his feet and to keep fighting this unwinnable battle.

Joonmyun’s fingers tighten, closing around his own.

Yixing’s breath stops. He looks up, but Joonmyun has not moved. Has not woken.

It’s enough.

Yixing manages to pull himself to his feet. He scrubs his shirt sleeve across his eyes to dry them and stares down at his patient, his friend. There has to be something he can do. Think, Yixing.

Joonmyun’s swallow reflex is still active, clearly, or else he would be drowning in his own spittle. That means, with care, Yixing can still force him to take liquids. How long will Joonmyun last, on a liquid diet? Broths can only take a man so far; as it is the disease is eating his body from the inside out. At this point, it’s just a matter of which organ fails first.

No. He can’t think that way. There must be _something_.

Staring down at the fingers still entwined with his own, Yixing has an idea. Well, a glimmer of one, anyway. He turns Joonmyun’s hand over and examines the inside of his wrist, of his elbow, crisscrossed with bluish veins.

Perhaps, were he to administer the cinchona intravenously, it would have a greater effect.

It’s risky. As far as he knows, such a thing has never been attempted; moreover administering _anything_ intravenously inherently carries great risk. One false move could introduce air bubbles into the blood vessels, which would be deadly. But, at this point, if he doesn’t do something drastic, Joonmyun is facing certain death anyway.

It’s a difficult decision, impossible to know the right answer. Normal practice would be to present the options to the next-of-kin and place the decision on their shoulders, but clearly that is not an option here. Yixing must make the decision himself.

What would Joonmyun choose, were he able to decide for himself?

The answer is obvious and immediate. Joonmyun would choose to take the risk. Wasn’t that the life he had willingly chosen for himself in the first place - trading the risk of death for the chance at reward?

Well, then.

Yixing lifts Joonmyun’s fingers and kisses them again, a silent prayer in his heart. _Please don’t let this be wrong_. Then, he goes to his cabinet and pulls out his syringe kit. He’ll start with a half-dose, just to be certain there are no side effects.

The tea he’d originally brought in sits cooling at the bedside. Yixing refuses to waste it, but he can’t just inject _tea_ into Joonmyun’s veins. He’ll force Joonmyun to drink it afterwards. Instead, he prepares the cinchona in a saline solution while his needle is sterilizing in boiling water from the kettle.

He is very, very careful about picking out the vein. There can be no mistakes. Here, though, Joonmyun’s extreme weight loss, his sickly pale skin are actually a blessing; the veins are very easy to see, pressed clearly between atrophied muscle and paper-thin, translucent skin, like dried leaves pressed between pages of a book. Yixing judges the angle, inserts the needle, and slowly depresses the plunger.

There’s no immediate effect, of course. Yixing cleans his needle and returns to the now-cold tea, propping Joonmyun’s limp form up and spoon-feeding it to him in increments, tilting his head back and stroking his throat with his fingers to trigger the swallow reflex. It’s very slow going, but eventually, the full dose is gone.

When Yixing stands, his vision momentarily grays. He freezes and breathes deeply until it comes back.

He really does need to eat more, it seems.

 

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A new pattern emerges. Yixing administers the cinchona by needle twice a day spends the rest of his waking time painstakingly feeding Joonmyun water, broths, teas, bit by little tiny bit. The medicine will do no good if Joonmyun dies of dehydration or starvation. For two days, this continues, and as luck would have it they are two of the hottest, sweatiest, stickest days Yixing can remember. He gives up entirely on his shirt, reasoning that there need be no propriety in a house where he’s the only one conscious, anyway.

When he wakes up early on the third morning shivering violently despite the Caribbean heat, though, the obvious hits him.

Malaria. He’s got it too, of course. The exhaustion, the dizziness, the lack of appetite, the coughing. And now the paroxysmal cycles have begun, and two days out of every four he will be feverish, the disease eating away at his brain and body until he cannot function.

Yixing wraps himself in his expensive dressing gown and stumbles into the treatment room to stare at his apothecary jar. There’s barely an inch of powder left in the bottom. He’d hoped, since the intravenous solution required less, that the medicine would last another three weeks; but if he has to start dosing himself as well he’ll be lucky if it lasts ten days. And he does need to dose himself, even though his instincts scream that he should save it all for Joonmyun; he’s still early enough in the disease’s progression that there’s a chance he can eradicate it quickly. After all, he’s Joonmyun’s only hope - he can’t let the disease incapacitate him when he is so needed.

He needs more, and he needs it _now_.

For the first time in weeks, Yixing dresses for the public and leaves the house. It’s a risk, leaving Joonmyun unconscious and alone, but he has no choice. His errand-boy will not be coming to the house for another two days and anything could happen in that time, and in any case he would not send a child for something so important.

The walk down the mountain and into town is near an hour on a good day; today it takes Yixing close to two. He has to stop several times to rest, his legs shaky and threatening to give out. Though he left before the sun rose, by the time he gets to market it is in full swing, busy and bustling.

Yixing reaches the hovel and immediately knows something is not right, for the door is ajar. He steps inside and finds it utterly empty, devoid not only of cinchona powder, but also of furniture, possessions, people.

Stunned, Yixing manages to catch a passerby and ask about the house. He finds out that the Quechua native couple were driven out of town near two months ago, accused by the townspeople of witchcraft.

The walk home is even longer than the walk out, but it passes in an ugly gray blur. Yixing isn’t even certain how he manages to get home at all, so deep in shock is he.

Joonmyun is right where Yixing left him, sleeping unnervingly like the dead. Coming into the sickroom from being outside, the smell of sickness hits Yixing across the face like a wall. Having lived in it for weeks, he hadn’t realized how bad it had gotten.

He doesn’t care. Yixing kicks off his boots and climbs into the bed next to Joonmyun, wrapping his arms around thin, sharp shoulders and absorbing some of the feverish heat he’s emitting.

“I’m an idiot, Joon,” he whispers, as if the other man can hear him. “Why did I wait so long to go back to market? I should have gone every week to check on them.” Shivering violently, he heaves a sob that is more breath than tears. “Witchcraft. Ignorant _fools_ , all of them, attacking something simply because they don’t understand it.” His eyes fall on the jar, sitting across the room. “If I treat myself,” he thinks out loud, “we run out in two weeks or less. If I don’t, I probably will only be able to function that long.” Turning his head, he looks at the Captain’s lax face and asks, “What should I do?”

Joonmyun doesn’t answer. Yixing holds him tightly and cries himself to sleep.

 

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Administering the intravenous treatment is difficult with his hands shaking so badly, but somehow, Yixing manages it. He also manages it on himself, because once he wakens he realizes he knows full well what Joonmyun would tell him to do. There’s a _chance_ he can save himself, so of course he must _try_.

The first cycle of chills passes, and Yixing starts into his second cycle of fever with despair in his heart. It’s all he can do to remain on his feet now; yet somehow - it’s a mystery precisely _how_ \- he still finds it in himself to bring water in from the well, to make the broth and feed it to Joonmyun, to sterilize his needles and administer the dosages for them both. When he’s not doing one of these things he sleeps at Joonmyun’s side, unable to stomach the thought of leaving him. Joonmyun has been unconscious for five days now, and Yixing is very, very seriously considering giving up, just laying at his friend’s side and holding him close until death comes for them both.

So glazed and feverish is he that when there is a knock at his door, it doesn’t register at first. The second time, the knock is a pounding, and Yixing starts to consciousness, the image of Suho at the door with his bloodied crewmen the first night they met flashing through his head. He stumbles to the door, remembering as he goes that his errand boy is due today.

He gets a startled look from the child when he opens the door shirtless and sweating and flushed, and belatedly realizes he should have thrown on his dressing gown, at least. Oh well. It hardly matters.

“I’m here to bring ye’re order, sir,” the boy says slowly, indicating the wheeled cart he’s dragging. “And there was a box fer ya at th’ docks.”

Yixing blinks, uncomprehending. “A box?”

“Aye, sir.” The boy lifts it out of the cart; it’s really more of a crate, sealed and waterproofed wood, easily large enough to hold a good-sized dog. Yixing takes it and promptly drops it again, his weakened arms giving out; the boy catches it with a noise of alarm and gives Yixing a look.

“Sir, if ye’ll pardon my saying, ye don’ look well.”

It’s so absurd that Yixing actually smiles. It cracks the corners of his fever-dried lips. “I’ll pardon you saying, boy,” he murmurs dryly. “I’m afraid in my current state I will need you to bring these things inside for me.”

The boy does as he’s bade, his nose crinkling in disgust at the smell as he steps in the house. He sets the box on the table and takes the provisions to the kitchen. Yixing gets the boy’s payment from his purse and realizes that’s running low as well; he hasn’t had a source of income for a few weeks now.

“Anything else I can do, sir?” the boy asks, and there is real concern in his eyes. Yixing distantly thinks that if they were to die here, this boy would be the only one to realize it, and Yixing doesn’t even know his name.

It’s probably better that way.

He shakes his head, presses the coin into the boy’s hand and sends him on his way.

The crate is sealed all around with wax; Yixing gets a knife and breaks the seal, levering the box top off. For a moment, he does not understand what he is looking at.

Then, it hits him.

Cinchona. It’s the raw bark, not powdered, but there’s quite a lot of it. Enough for another few months, at least.

For the first time in weeks, hope glows somewhere deep in Yixing’s chest. He smiles so widely that his lips actually do crack and bleed. Ignoring the blood, he reaches gingerly into the crate, pulling out the letter resting on the bark. It’s sealed in deep green wax, stamped with a pair of crescent moons.

The letter is dated six weeks previous, and it is quite short.

_On a recent foray to the market in Maricaibo, Chanyeol spotted a native seller and recognized the name of the plant. The alchemist who sold it to us warned us that the bark is best used freshly-ground; it loses potency the longer it remains in powdered form. As the powder is all you had at the time we left, we thought it best to buy out his entire stock and send it to you. I pray this reaches you in time to do some good._

_We head for the Keys next. I hope to find word from you there. Until then, the best of luck, my friend. Pass the crew’s regards to the Captain._

_Byun Baekhyun_

That’s it then. That’s why the medicine has not been working; it’s stale. How long had it been sitting on the shelf in the natives’ hovel before he purchased it? Perhaps it had enough potency left to stave off immediate death, but now…

Now, there is hope.

Yixing practically runs for the kitchen. He puts the kettle on to boil and digs in his cupboards for his mortar and pestle.

Waiting for the water to boil is far more stressful than usual; he busies himself putting away the provisions the boy has brought him with a strength in his movements he thought lost to him just minutes previous. When the kettle finally whistles, Yixing uses the boiling water to sterilize his mortar and pestle and sets to work, breaking off a chunk of bark and grinding it to a fine dust.

He administers the powder to himself, first; just on the off chance it’s not fine enough or something and it would cause complications. When a half-hour goes by with no reaction, he prepares a second dose for Joonmyun.

“I suspect we both owe Chanyeol our lives,” he murmurs as he presses the plunger. The needle comes smoothly out of Joon’s skin, a tiny pinprick next to a half-dozen others on the inside of his arm. He’s been alternating arms but two shots a day has taken its toll on both of their skin, matching sets of purpling bruises on them both. Letting his hand drop, Yixing stares at Joonmyun’s face, handsome and still and pale as death.

“I almost broke my vow,” he murmurs. “I almost gave up on you. I’m sorry.” As has become his habit, he lifts Joonmyun’s lax hand and presses a kiss to the knuckles. “I’ll never give up again.”

He writes his second letter to the crew, thanking them over and over again for the cinchona and writing that he hopes he will be able to send them good news soon. That night, pressed against Joonmyun’s side, Yixing gets the first full night’s sleep he’s had in weeks.

 

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The next day brings his newfound hope crashing down around his ears. Yixing is in the kitchen, grinding more bark, when he hears something from the treatment room. Thinking - _hoping_ \- that Joonmyun is waking up, he runs for the room with a smile on his cracked lips.

Then he takes in the scene on the bed and his stomach drops through the floor.

“No,” he whispers. “No, no, nononono Kim Joonmyun don’t you _dare_.” He’s panicking, he knows he is, but  
Joonmyun is fully _arched off the bed_ , his back one long curve through the air, balanced improbably on the top of his head and his heels. It looks like nothing so much as a demon possession, and if Yixing hadn’t seen it before in medical school he would probably be running for a priest, atheism notwithstanding.

His professor had called this _opisthotonus_ , and the patient in which he’d seen it demonstrated had suffered from a severe head injury, the kind that leaves a man simple for the rest of his life. In all his readings on malaria, he’s only ever read of this particular symptom happening in one other recorded case, when the disease entered the brain and triggered the muscles of the spinal column to flex.

Yixing runs to Joonmyun and very, very carefully eases him down onto his side on the bed. His spine is extended as far as it will go, trembling with strain; if he doesn’t do something soon the muscles might tear. But there is no known treatment for the condition. The only thing he can do is try to make Joon as comfortable as possible and treat the malaria itself.

If the disease is in the brain now, Yixing doesn’t have much time. He’d once likened malaria to a siege; well now the walls of the keep have been breached and the battle is at hand. It’s war.

And so Yixing decides to take his biggest risk yet.

Praying that Joonmyun will be alright for the time it will take, Yixing runs back to the kitchen and his half-ground bark. Determination gives his movements a feverish strength; he grinds twice the powder in half the time it would normally take and dissolves it in saline. The dosage is high, as high as he dares - close to triple what he had been administering. Yixing fills the sterilized needle and returns to the treatment room. Joonmyun is still arched, terrifyingly unnatural.

Yixing carefully searches out Joonmyun’s jugular vein. With his neck stretched out like this, Yixing must call up every anatomical chart he has ever studied. He cannot afford to miss - injecting this into an artery, or worse, raw tissue, will almost certainly kill him.

He places the needle, measures the depth visually, and presses it in. The jugular is deeper than the veins in the arm, and there’s no real way to tell if he’s got it right. He can only guess, and push, and pray. When the needle is empty he pulls it out and waits. This close to the brain, if he’s missed, he’ll know fairly quickly.

For ten minutes, he does not move from the bedside. There is no change. He takes that as a good sign and gets up to clean his needle and prep his own dose, listening intently for any sound from the treatment room.

When he has finished with his own dose - which he has doubled, because he is very done with malaria - he returns to Joonmyun’s room. To his shock - and joy - Joon’s spine has eased; he’s resting in a much more comfortable position on his side.

Yixing collapses to the bed with relief, the release of adrenaline leaving him feeling giddy and lightheaded, and he allows himself to hope that’s done it - that the disease has been pushed back from Joon’s brain. He must hope it, because he can’t risk using the jugular again. But, if there are no side effects from the triple dose, perhaps he can continue to use such a high dose in his regular administration.

“Take that,” he whispers, giggling a little under his breath. It’s possible the fever is driving him mad, but Yixing couldn’t care less at the moment; he just lays there helplessly laughing until he falls asleep.

 

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In the evening of the seventh day since Joonmyun has fallen unconscious, Yixing is in the kitchen preparing Joonmyun’s broth when he hears a noise from the treatment bed. Fear spikes through him, and he runs across the house, skidding into the doorway fully expecting to see Joonmyun’s body a deathly parody of the London Bridge again.

Instead, he sees the thing he thought he’d never see again.

Yixing blinks in shock. Joonmyun blinks back at him.

“You’re awake,” Yixing murmurs in awe.

“Yes,” Joonmyun replies, voice gravelly with unuse, and Yixing thinks he might faint with joy. No human’s voice has ever sounded so sweet.

Joonmyun furrows his brow in confusion. “You’re not wearing a shirt,” he notes, and then blinks again, and says, “And my voice is back?”

Yixing grins like a maniac. “You haven’t coughed in a week,” he explains, a bit breathlessly. “I suppose your throat has had time to heal.”

The furrow between Joonmyun’s brows deepens. Yixing kind of wants to kiss it. He’s pretty sure his lips have split again and he cannot find even a _tiny_ bit of himself that cares. The fact that Joonmyun’s making facial expressions, let alone _speaking_ , has him internally crowing in victory.

“A week?” Joon mutters in confusion. “What do you mean?” He sees Yixing’s face and the confusion starts to be replaced with panic. “Yixing? Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he says, and realizes, somewhat belatedly, that he’s crying. “It’s just. You were unconscious for the entire past week. I thought...I was _sure_ I was losing you….that I’d lost you.”

Joonmyun’s brow smoothes. “Oh,” he breathes. “I see.” He reaches out a hand. It’s feeble, and shaky, but it’s movement, movement under his own power, and it’s the most beautiful thing Yixing has ever seen. A tiny sob escapes Yixing’s throat. “Come here,” Joonmyun says, and Yixing moves forward, dropping to his knees by the side of the bed. Joonmyun’s hand wraps around his shoulder, and for a long moment they just stare at one another.

“You’re burning up,” Joonmyun notes quietly. “And sweating. And you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

It’s easy to see him putting the pieces together, realizing the truth, but all Yixing can focus on is the fact that Joonmyun can feel Yixing’s fever on his skin - because that means _Joon’s own fever is breaking_.

“I’m entering my third paroxysmal cycle,” he explains, and Joonmyun’s eyes widen when he realizes what that means.

“Yixing, _no_.”

“It’s okay, Joon,” Yixing whispers. “You woke up. That means it’s _working_.”

Another frown, and this close, Yixing’s urge to kiss it is becoming problematic. He manages to refrain.

“What is working?”

Yixing holds out his arms to display the needle bruises and explains. Joon listens with wide eyes as every complication, every trial, every hope, doubt and fear of the past month comes tumbling out of him like a waterfall. He looks especially affected when Yixing describes the opisthotonus, murmuring something under his breath about how that explains why his back is so sore. Yixing finishes with “And then, tonight, you woke up,” and Joonmyun reaches out to take his hand.

“You are an incredible man, Zhang Yixing,” he murmurs. “I owe you everything.” He shakes his head in amazement. “A lesser man would have given up, or gone mad, or both.”

Yixing barks a sharp, rasping laugh. “I think I _have_ gone mad,” he points out. “You should have seen me, walking around the house practically nude and chattering on to no one at all. And now you’re awake and I can’t stop _laughing_.”

Joonmyun smiles at him, and it’s weak but it’s _real_. “It does sound quite a sight,” he says, and though his eyes are still yellowed there’s a bit of a twinkle in them, and Yixing starts weeping again, he’s so _deliriously_ happy. “But you must concentrate on taking care of yourself, now. Look at you, sweating and shivering and laughing and crying all at once.”

Yixing lets out another short, sharp chuckle. “At least two of those are your fault,” he shoots back, with no malice. “I was preparing broth but if you are awake you should have something more solid. I’ll make us soup.” He attempts to stand, but the change in altitude has him dizzy and he stumbles onto the bed. Warm, thin arms catch him, shaky and weak but _there_.

“Careful,” Joon murmurs, and Yixing looks up at him, at his black eyes and his sweaty, messy dark hair that’s gotten too long and his yellowed skin and the concern on his too-sharp face and realizes something very, very obvious.

Somewhere along the line, he’s fallen in love with Kim Joonmyun.


	3. Chapter 3

From that point forward, everything changes.

Two days after he wakes up, Joonmyun is able to sit up in bed. Three days after that, Yixing catches him attempting to stand on legs that have not held weight in close to three months, and in his attempt to race to Joonmyun’s side he nearly blacks out. Joon curses him for a fool, and they argue over it for a moment, but Yixing finds he does not have the strength to fight a determined Kim Joonmyun. Joon wants to walk again, so walk he shall; Yixing lends an arm that is nearly as unsteady as Joonmyun’s legs.

As soon as he can move about under his own power - albeit shaky and slow and aided by a cane, like an aged veteran - Joonmyun insists that Yixing teach him how to prepare their medicine. Yixing wants to protest, but as he is having more and more trouble getting out of bed in the mornings, he sees the practicality of it. There is a goodly chance he will soon be bedridden, himself.

And through all this, there is the constant, pressing knowledge that he is _in love_ with this man.

At first, Yixing tries to ignore it, to hide it, but Joonmyun immediately comments on his forced distance. They have become accustomed, it seems, to sharing each other’s space, to touching each other and seeing one another in all stages of composure from perfectly put-together to deathly ill, and it is silly to maintain propriety at this point.

So instead, he simply wears his love on his sleeve without calling attention to it. It’s always been there anyway, in every word and touch exchanged, in every hellish moment of fever and every bleak urge to give up. The difference is only that he knows now what it is, knows what to call his devotion to this Captain in his own mind, even if he can’t bring himself to confess it out loud. 

Though Yixing long ago made peace with his own urges, that God and society deem _unnatural_ , he has no way of knowing how Joonmyun feels on the subject of a man loving a man. He is a sailor, and moreover a pirate, and thus may possibly be a bit more open-minded than most, but Yixing can’t bring himself to ask, for fear of the answer.

In his more delirious moments, Yixing allows himself to think maybe Joonmyun _knows_ , maybe he can see that Yixing’s feelings for him go beyond simple friendship. That maybe, if he were to confess, Joonmyun would accept his emotions, not let them destroy the friendship they have. If he’s honest with himself, though, the reverse is far more likely true, and so he will not risk it. Now is not the time, in any case - they both have larger things to worry about.

One night, though, when the chills are particularly bad and Yixing’s beginning to really feel the shortness in his breath, in a moment of terrified weakness he softly confesses to Joonmyun that he had shared the man’s bed while he was unconscious, remaining close in case anything should happen. Joonmyun, bless him, does not take offense and even offers his bed again, agreeing that Yixing should remain close in case. Yixing thinks it’s probably more that Joonmyun is worried for Yixing’s health than his own by this point, but he curls gratefully up against Joonmyun’s side, a warm arm that is not as thin as it was even two weeks ago holding him close.

The next day, Yixing does not awaken until late in the afternoon, when Joon brings him tea. He tries to sit up and finds his body too weak to manage it, his mind a hazy yellowish fog. He requires Joonmyun’s help to sit up, to eat, and even to lay back down, and this time it is Joonmyun who sits at the bedside and reads aloud. Yixing drifts off listening to the tales of Gulliver’s adventures in Laputa.

It is at this point that Yixing loses track of the passage of time entirely. The little that he can manage to be awake is filled with coughing, pain, shivering, dizziness and difficulty breathing. Sleep is uneasy and restless, filled with delirium and nightmares. Joonmyun is his anchor, the only constant in his life that he can hang onto, the only thing he always believes is real. When Joonmyun tells him to eat, Yixing eats. When Joonmyun tells him to sleep, Yixing sleeps. 

When Joonmyun tells him to _breathe, dammit_ , crouched over Yixing’s body with sheer panic in his eyes, Yixing breathes.

 

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Opening his eyes to see Joonmyun asleep beside him, angelic in the early morning light, feels like another delirious dream. Or maybe, he’s finally given into the sickness, and this is Heaven.

But as Yixing wakes more fully, the world solidifies around him, and he becomes aware of the stiffness in his body, the rasp in his throat, the tender soreness inside his elbows. No, this is reality. Joonmyun, his forehead just barely touching Yixing’s shoulder, is still a bit too thin, his hair too long, worry lines etched in his face. But, Yixing realizes, he’s gained some weight, and the yellowish cast seems to be gone from his skin. He looks well on his way to recovery - far better than the last time Yixing saw him. He’s still alive - they’re _both_ still alive.

How long has Yixing been delirious? How much has he missed? The clock on the wall tells him it’s close to 6AM, but there’s no calendar of any sort in the room, so he has no way of knowing the date.

Carefully, Yixing takes stock of his body. Every extremity works - he can wiggle his toes and fingers, bend his elbows and knees and shoulders and hips. His back feels stiff with unuse, but not overly sore, so he probably didn’t bridge the way Joonmyun did; he hums a little to test his voice and finds it functional.

The noise rouses his bedmate, who makes a small noise of his own and blinks awake. Yixing smiles shyly at him and in return receives the biggest, most beautiful smile he’s ever seen in his life, growing and spreading across Joonmyun’s face like the light of the rising sun on the clear Caribbean sea. Yixing’s heart pounds like a drum and he’s fairly certain it has nothing to do with his illness.

“Good morning,” he murmurs. His voice is gritty and soft; he clears his throat.

“You’re awake,” Joonmyun says in awe, which is stating the obvious but Yixing knows how he feels so he lets it slide. “How are you feeling?”

“Weak,” Yixing admits. “Stiff. But my mind is clearing. How long has it been?”

“You’ve been unconscious for four days,” Joonmyun tells him, “but you haven’t been coherent for weeks. The fever affected you greatly.” His arm snakes under the covers and over Yixing’s ribs, giving him a tiny squeeze. “But you haven’t shown many of the symptoms I did, so, that is a blessing.”

Yixing attempts to move under his own power. He is able to roll onto his side so he is facing Joonmyun, but that is as far as he manages. “No symptoms of the eyes?” he asks, and Joon shakes his head. “No jaundice? No convulsions or opisthotonus?”

Another shake of the head in the negative. “Just the fever, and you stopped breathing a few times,” Joonmyun murmurs. “I did the thing you did to me, manipulating your arms to aide your lungs. I probably did it wrong but it seemed to help anyway.”

Frowning, Yixing says, “I don’t remember that at all. But I am certain you did it well, and equally certain I owe you my life.”

Joon’s smile threatens to consume his eyes. “I do believe, at this point, we are beyond keeping score,” he breathes. “I am just thankful you are back. I am not sure which was more maddening, the weeks of incoherent babbling, or the days of dead silence.”

“Weeks,” Yixing repeats thoughtfully, and he eyes Joonmyun again. The man does look _startlingly_ hale, considering he was barely two steps from death’s door the last time Yixing remembers looking. “How _many_ weeks, precisely?”

Joonmyun’s eyes are hiding something, something painful. “Six,” he whispers, and Yixing’s jaw drops. “It’s midway through November now.”

What a hellish thing to go through! And...hmm. Yixing cannot possibly have been delirious with fever that entire time - his brain would have cooked. “How many times did I fall unconscious during those weeks?” he asks, suspicious.

A tiny twitch of a smile. “So sharp, Doctor,” Joonmyun murmurs. “At least three, that I know of. Sometimes you were just...deeply sleeping. I only considered it unconsciousness if I could not rouse you for two full days.” He presses his fingers to Yixing’s forehead and says “You feel cooler than you have in months, though. I allow myself to hope the worst is over now.”

His hand is warm - not feverishly warm, just pleasantly so. Yixing’s eyes flutter shut at the touch, and Joon’s fingers trail briefly down the side of his face, cupping his cheek for a fleeting moment before falling away.

“I pray you’re right,” Yixing murmurs. “I am done with being a layabout.” He allows himself the indulgence of reaching for Joonmyun’s shoulder, grasping it in a friendly gesture they’d both adopted as customary. Far removed from the heated, paper-thin skin stretched uncomfortably over bone that he had become accustomed to, Joonmyun feels solid and strong under his hand, his skin still pale but once more supple and the muscles nearly returned to their previously hearty state. Relief and hope and happiness bubble up in Yixing, and with them a tiny, weak twinge of desire, the kind of desire he has for the past five months been too worried or ill to experience. It’s odd to feel, but Yixing welcomes it, like welcoming home a long-lost member of the family. It is a good sign, that he can feel desire again, however small.

The crooks of Joonmyun’s elbows show faded yellow bruising; it’s been at least a week - maybe more - since he’s given himself a shot of cinchona. Yixing lets his fingers trail down Joonmyun’s arm as he pulls away, his dry, chapped lip finding its way between his teeth. Joonmyun watches him with unreadable dark eyes, and it hits Yixing how very intimately close they are, even if there is a good six inches of space between their bodies. This experience has utterly destroyed any barriers between them - they’ve both had to change each other’s bedpans, for heaven’s sake; there is no greater devotion than that. Whether or not Yixing ever manages to make known to Joonmyun his true feelings, they are as close now as friends can possibly be, and for that he is grateful.

Yixing’s stomach chooses that moment to growl, a loud and quite uncouth sound in the silent room. Joonmyun blinks in shock, and then starts laughing; weakly Yixing joins him.

“Six weeks of nothing but broth,” Joonmyun wheezes out between chuckles, “you must be starving. I’ll get you something.”

He makes to get up, but Yixing grabs his shirt, tugging feebly to stop him. “Joon,” he says.

Joonmyun looks back at him, and that guarded, hidden thing is back into his eyes. “Yes?”

“Thank you,” Yixing whispers. “I don’t believe I can ever repay you for what you have done for me.”

Silence, for a long moment. Joonmyun averts his eyes.

“Xing,” he says, and the new nickname makes Yixing’s heartbeat triple. “Had it not been for me...you would never have fallen ill in the first place.”

He pulls out of Yixing’s hands and leaves the room.

 

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Over the next few weeks, as Yixing’s strength slowly returns to him, the feeling around the house becomes increasingly uncomfortable and odd. Joonmyun cares for him with an unending tenderness and devotion, but he smiles less often, and Yixing catches him watching with unreadable eyes when he thinks Yixing’s not looking. Sometimes, when Yixing suffers a coughing fit or stumbles in his attempt to stand, he thinks he sees guilt in Joonmyun’s eyes. Clearly, he’s blaming himself for Yixing’s sickness - he’d said as much out loud, right when Yixing woke up - and Yixing is unsure how to communicate to him that he’s not to blame. The risk of contracting illnesses from his patients is a hazard of Yixing’s profession that he understood full well when he took his oaths. 

More maddening is the physical distance Joonmyun slowly pushes upon them as Yixing needs his help less and less to function. In the past close-to-six months, Yixing has gotten used to Joonmyun’s hands on his skin, his skin under Yixing’s hands; to the man’s warmth and strength and reassuring presence. They’re back to sleeping in separate beds, which is only right and proprietary and which Yixing hates, and Joonmyun finishes Gulliver’s Travels on his own while Yixing sleeps.

It’s two weeks to Christmas when Yixing re-opens his practice, still walking with a cane but strong enough to stay awake through the daylight hours and his mind clear enough to see patients again. Joonmyun, fully recovered now and with the old spring in his step, offers to go down to market and post a notice on the board; he returns with a woman and her sickly child in tow and Yixing falls immediately into old habits. It’s croup, a common enough childhood disease, frightening for a new mother to witness but nothing serious. Yixing prescribes steam treatment for ten minutes every six hours and sends them on their way.

Joonmyun watches him interact with the pair with a small smile on his face that he probably thinks Yixing doesn’t see, and then offers to escort them back to town. Yixing stands in the doorway and watches them go, thinking fondly that Joon is quite a gentleman, for a pirate. 

He is about to turn and re-enter the house when he spots a familiar form scuttling up the hill. It’s his errand-boy, whom Yixing has not seen since he awoke; Joonmyun had dismissed him as soon as it seemed like Yixing was getting better to save their pennies.

The boy grins when he sees Yixing, and Yixing smiles back at him.

“Glad to see ye up an’ about, Sir,” the boy says as he approaches. “I ‘appened to spy this in the postmaster’s office and thought ye might like me to bring it up.” He holds out a letter, rough parchment with a familiar green wax seal. 

“Imp,” Yixing accuses fondly. “You just wanted the coin.” The boy grins at him shamelessly, not even bothering to deny it. “Alright, hang on a moment.”

Digging a few pennies from the small purse the worried mother just left behind, Yixing drops them in the boy’s hands, pats his head and sends him on his way. That done, he settles inside with a new cup of tea and pries the letter open.  
_  
Dearest Yixing (and Captain Suho as well):_

_We were all thankful to find two letters upon our return to the Keys, for the first was rather alarming in tone, and in penmanship. I wonder, Doctor, if you even realized how very apparent your sickness was in the quality of your hand; as I have myself witnessed how steady you usually are it was quite disquieting to see your pen-strokes shivering all over the page. And so, it was a great ease to our hearts to hear that you were on your way to recovery in Suho’s second letter._

_Captain: No. We will not be returning to Tortuga._

_You may curse us for mutineers if you wish - don’t deny it, I can practically see your face as I write this. I know you, Joonmyun. I know you think you’re recovered, but I am not willing to take any chances. We will not be coming back to get you until a full year has passed, as per the Doctor’s orders._

_Please, both of you, keep us appraised. Our prayers go with you._

_Byun Baekhyun_  
  
With shaking hands, Yixing re-folds the letter and tucks it away in the envelope. He remains in this chair, his tea cooling untouched by his side, right up until Joonmyun comes home.

The Captain comes in with a murmured greeting, automatically stripping off his jacket and shoes at the door, hanging his hat and sword on the coatrack, perfectly at home in a way that makes Yixing ache. When Yixing doesn’t immediately respond to his greeting, he looks up, his brow furrowed.

“Everything alright?” he asks. Yixing wordlessly holds out the letter.

Joon takes it, opens it quickly and reads. It’s clear from his expression that Yixing’s silence has made him expect bad news, and so it is with an odd mix of relief and resignation that he sets the letter back down.

“Well,” he sighs. “That’s that.”

“Were you going to tell me?” Yixing murmurs, his voice an oddly flat monotone. Joonmyun blinks at him in confusion, and his lack of understanding makes anger bubble up under Yixing’s skin. “Or were you planning on disappearing in the night without a word?”

Dark brows furrow again. “Xing -”

“I told you from the beginning,” Yixing says, and it comes out louder than he intended, and sharper. “I told you you would have to stay for a year. Why would you even ask?”

“I’m fine, Yixing,” Joonmyun says, and the frustrated exasperation in his voice has never been more apparent. “I’m _healed_ and I have been for weeks. You did it, you _saved_ me, and now you’re almost recovered yourself and…”

“And so you think it’s time to leave.” Yixing closes his eyes and breathes deep, asking for strength. “What will you do if it comes back?”

“It won’t.”

“ _You don’t know that!_ ”

Joonmyun’s eyes widen, shocked at the outburst. Yixing is a bit shocked himself - he can’t even remember the last time he’s raised his voice like that - but he is _upset_ , dammit, and frustrated. Quickly, though, Joonmyun’s shock is replaced by anger, sparking in his dark eyes and winding his fingers into a fist.

“Don’t you _dare_ speak to me that way,” Joonmyun hisses. His tone is hard and biting, and reminds Yixing rather sharply of the slave drivers he’d once been sold to. It is a side of Joonmyun he has not seen, and one he _definitely_ does not like.

Slowly, Yixing gets to his feet, raising his chin and looking down his nose at Joonmyun in the most aristocratically British manner he can muster. “I will speak to you how I please,” he bites out. “If not for me, you would not be standing there.”

A sneer. “Right, and because you saved my life you now have the right to _run_ it.” Joon takes a step forward, and for the first time Yixing feels a thread of fear. Yixing is taller, but Joonmyun is very much the broader and stronger of the two, and would be even if Yixing wasn’t still recovering, wasn’t using all of his strength just to stand up straight and look Joonmyun in the eye.

“ _I am trying to keep you alive,_ ” Yixing snaps back, with every ounce of force he can muster. “What is so hard to understand about that?!”

“I can’t _stand_ it here, alright?” Joonmyun finally yells. “I am _suffocating_ in this house. If I don’t get out of here, _I am going to go mad_.”

The force of it drives Yixing back a step, drives his breath out of his lungs, each word burrowing under his skin like fishhooks. Silence follows Joonmyun’s outburst, Yixing struck speechless.

Finally, he closes his mouth, and swallows hard. “I can’t stop you,” he says hoarsely. “If you need to leave so badly, then leave.”

Dark eyes fix on his, and there’s something besides the anger and the frustration, the same something that’s been lurking behind his eyes since Yixing woke up, something that Yixing thinks might be guilt. “I will, then,” he says, low and soft.

He turns his back, headed for the treatment room with purpose in his stride.

Yixing collapses back into the chair, slumping forward with his elbows on his knees and his head hanging. That isn’t how this is supposed to go. Joon isn’t supposed to...He can’t _leave_. What if he relapses? What if something else happens to him?

But, how can Yixing ask him to stay? The desperation in his voice makes it clear that he can no longer stand being in this house, and after spending six weeks alone with a delirious man and four more playing nursemaid, Yixing can’t really say he blames him for it. Not everyone is cut out to care for the sick; that a man like Joonmyun has lasted this long is a bloody miracle.

Lost in his thoughts, Yixing doesn’t immediately notice when Joonmyun re-emerges, the rucksack Baekhyun had packed for him six months ago slung over his shoulder. He heads for the door, yanking on his boots and his coat, buckling the sword-belt around his hips and jamming his hat onto his head, and Yixing should say something, he should _stop this_ , but he can’t, he opens his mouth and nothing comes out.

Joon pauses with his hand on the latch. 

“I won’t be leaving right away,” he mutters, and Yixing can’t even lift his head to look at him. “You’ll likely find me in the inn if you need me.” He doesn’t even need to say which inn - Yixing knows exactly which one he means, that’s how close they have become.

Yixing’s eyes squeeze shut. He hears the door open and close, and then he is alone.

 

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The house feels extraordinarily lonely without Joonmyun around.

Yixing knows, consciously, that he had spent nearly five years living alone in this very house before taking the pirate in, and that it has only been a little over six months that he has not been alone. It should be fairly easy to fall back into old habits, but Yixing finds it close to impossible. He finds himself preparing too much food, or pouring an extra cup of tea, or calling out Joonmyun’s name to share something that he’s just read or some fleeting thought he’s just had, before remembering that the captain is gone. His bed has felt colder since they ceased sharing the sheets, but now it’s almost impossible to sleep, the silence in the house too complete without Joonmyun snoring or shifting or mumbling in his slumber in the next room.

The first time he takes an overnight patient - a middle-aged woman with a worryingly high fever, two days prior to Christmas - feels like a betrayal, and Yixing gives up on sleep somewhere around 2 AM, instead tucking himself in the chair in the sitting room with _Gulliver’s Travels_. 

In the morning, the woman’s fever has not abated, and Yixing finds himself wondering if perhaps the malaria has somehow spread from his remote home in the mountains down to the town. He doubts it, mainly because the woman’s fever is not behaving the same way as Joonmyun’s or his own, but there is a niggling fear that drives him out of the house and down to market that morning, looking for willow bark in the hopes the fever will respond to treatment when it has not responded to simple rest and care.

The walk down the mountain is long and tiring, as Yixing still has not completely regained his strength. He is sweating and winded when he finally gains flat ground, and stops at the edge of town to rest for a few minutes before continuing into the marketplace.

It is early enough that the drunkards and rowdies are still mostly asleep, and Yixing gets to the apothecary and makes his purchase without incident. On the way back, he passes Joonmyun’s favorite inn, and hesitates for a moment. It’s been more than a week, but it’s possible Joonmyun is still here; particularly this close to Christmas there may not be a ship going wherever he wants to go for quite a while. The native populations and the escaped slaves may not celebrate it, but most of the city is Haitian French, with large populations of English, Spanish, and Dutch, and many of them do.

If it were any other day, Yixing would keep walking. But it’s Christmas Eve. 

He enters the tavern.

Speaking with the bar matron - a plump and quite lovely woman named Anna whom he has grown fond of since Joon introduced them - tells him what he needs to know. Joonmyun is still in Tortuga, but he’s not in the inn at the moment. He left early this morning, and no, Anna does not know where he went. It’s a disappointment, but Yixing keeps his polite smile on his face as he thanks Anna and takes his leave.

He doesn’t even get three blocks away before he nearly runs directly into Joonmyun, coming around the corner. He starts, surprised, and legs still not quite up to full strength wobble. With a small cry of alarm, Yixing loses his balance.

Strong hands shoot out and snag him by the lapels of his coat, catching him before he can fall and pulling him back onto his feet. His reflexes are so fast it practically makes Yixing’s head spin.

“Careful,” Joonmyun admonishes, eyes wide and dark.

They stare at one another for a long moment, and Yixing tries to regain his balance and his breath and his sanity all at once. Joonmyun, surprisingly, breaks the spell first, dropping Yixing’s coat as if it burns him and taking a single step back. “I didn’t think to be seeing you in town today.”

It takes Yixing a moment too long to respond, and when he does, his voice comes out a strangled squeak. He clears his throat and tries again.

“I had an errand,” he says simply, holding up his parcel. “You’re...you’re still here?”

It’s the wrong thing to say, clearly; Joonmyun’s expression closes off. “At least until the new year,” he admits tightly. “There’s a merchant vessel headed north towards the Keys, but they won’t be leaving until January.”

Right. The Florida Keys. Where the _Two Moons_ will be stopping at least once every two months. It’s a good plan, probably Joonmyun’s only hope of finding his way back to his ship. “I see,” Yixing murmurs, thinking that he might send a package to Baekhyun on the same ship, with his remaining cinchona and instructions how to administer it. He’ll have to do so without Joon knowing, of course, but that shouldn’t be too difficult - just the right amount of coin in the right hands. No matter how healthy he looks now - and really, he looks _incredible_ , especially considering he was _in a coma_ less than three months ago - Yixing is not willing to take any risks. He has invested far too much in this man to let him kill himself with his own stupidity at this late date.

Lost in thought, Yixing doesn’t really take note of the awkwardness of the silence until Joonmyun breaks it. “Do you...do you have plans for the holiday?” he asks.

Yixing blinks. Holiday? Oh yes, Christmas. Which is tomorrow. “No,” he says, because what plans would he have? He has no close friends in the city and he’s been exiled from his home country and his entire family. “Do you?” he asks, curious.

“Ah. Anna and a few other tavern matrons are planning a dinner for those staying on. I haven’t been at port for Christmas in years, so I’m looking forward to it.” Joonmyun hesitates, then visibly screws up his courage, standing straighter with eyes intense. “You should join us,” he says firmly. “You spend too much time cooped up on that mountain.”

It’s probably true, but Yixing has never minded his solitude. Not until recently, anyway. “I doubt I will be able,” he replies. “I have a patient, quite ill. Hence, the errand.” And, honestly, he has been away from her too long; she needs this medicine as soon as possible and it’s still another hour’s walk back up the mountain. “I should get home,” he hedges. “Thank you, though. For the offer.” He tries on a smile, and it’s a little tight around the edges, but Joonmyun returns it anyway.

“Alright, Doctor,” Joonmyun murmurs. He reaches out and clasps Yixing’s shoulder; the familiarity of his firm, friendly grasp makes a lump lodge unpleasantly in Yixing’s throat. “I hope to see you again before I leave.”

Yixing nods, his smile a little more natural this time. “I suspect you probably shall,” he says, and is vaguely proud of how cordial he makes it sound. 

Joon’s fingers squeeze him one more time before his hand falls away, and he brushes past, headed down the street towards the tavern. Yixing turns to watch him go for a long moment before resuming his own journey.

 

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To Yixing’s immense relief, the woman’s fever is simply that, a fever. It isn’t malaria. And once he begins administering the willow bark treatment, is subsides fairly quickly. Though still a bit shaky, the woman is able to return to her husband and children for Christmas dinner.

Yixing walks her down the mountain simply to ensure that she is capable of making the rest of the trip on her own. With profuse thanks, she takes her leave at the edge of town.

Turning, and with a small smile of satisfaction on his face, Yixing makes to head back home. Then he remembers the day, and Joonmyun’s invitation. It seems he will be free for Christmas dinner after all, and he is already closer to the inn now than he is to his own home. Should he take Joon up on it?

He thinks that he would probably adore spending Christmas with Joonmyun, that he would like to see the man laughing and talking and being the center of attention. But he hesitates, because the clothes he is wearing are not really suitable for a public function, because he is unwashed and sweaty, and because he hasn’t slept more than two hours in a row for at least three days. He doesn’t really want Joon - or anyone else, for that matter - to see him like this. And, all the rest aside, he is _exhausted_.

So Yixing turns and heads slowly back up the mountain. 

Without company to keep him distracted, the walk seems interminably long. He stumbles at least twice; by the time he gets to his door his vision is graying. He barely has the strength to pull off his boots before he collapses into the armchair and passes out.

Roused some unknown amount of time later by a knock on the door, Yixing blinks his way out of heavy, foggy slumber and staggers to the door. He’s half-expecting another patient, and does what he can to fix his rumpled shirt and press down his wild hair before opening the door.

It’s the errand-boy, grinning up at him with a large, cloth-wrapped package in his arms. “Merry Christmas!” he chirps, as Yixing blinks at him myopically. When Yixing does not immediately respond, his face falls a little, replaced with concern. “Are you well, sir?”

Huh? Oh. “Just weary,” Yixing assures him, and tries on a smile. “It’s been a long day.” He nods to the package. “What’s that, then?”

“It’s from your friend, sir,” the boy says, and Yixing’s first reaction is _I don’t have any friends_. Then it registers who he must be talking about, and Yixing stands a little straighter.

“Well,” he murmurs. “That’s a surprise.” 

He reaches to take the package, but the boy backs off a step. “It’s quite heavy, sir,” he says, eyeing Yixing’s hands. Yixing hadn’t realized they were trembling. “I’ll bring it in for you.” Yixing nods gratefully, and the boy does just that, setting it on the table. “Anything else I can do for you, sir?” 

Is there? Well...yes, actually. “You know the notice boards in the town square?” The boy indicates the affirmative. “Locate my advertisement and take it down, please. I am not certain I am feeling well enough for patients at the moment.” He sighs, because he doesn’t _want_ to do this, but he will be of little help to anyone if his hands are shaking and he can’t even walk home without passing out. _Physician, heal thyself,_ he thinks wryly. He needs a few uninterrupted days of rest. “I will put up another when I am well again.”

The boy bows. “As ye wish, sir,” he says, and Yixing smiles at him and sends him on his way. It isn’t until well after the door has closed that Yixing realizes the boy did not ask for payment - Joon must have paid him in advance.

The package, as it turns out, is a basket of food, of bread and roast fowl and mincemeat pie and spiced potatoes and even a bottle of hand-mulled wine. It’s cold but it smells wonderful and it’s easily enough to feed three large  
men, or one Yixing for a week. If only Yixing was hungry.

He _should_ eat, though, so he portions out some of the meat and heats it on the stove with the wine as marinade, trying not to think too hard about Joonmyun missing him at the dinner, Joonmyun asking Anna to help him prepare the basket and tracking down the serving boy on Christmas to ensure Yixing receives the gift immediately. He wishes Joon had brought it up himself, but one can’t have everything.

The food is quite good but Yixing can’t even eat the entirety of the portion he’s heated, and forgets to put the basket away before he’s collapsing in the chair and falling back asleep.

 

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Yixing’s plan was to rest for three days, maybe five if necessary, and then re-open his practice. Things never do go as planned, however, and after three days of restless sleep plagued by nightmares, of a fever he can feel and a cough that steadily worsens, he has to admit to himself the possibility that it’s not mere exhaustion. He’s been so busy worrying about whether Joon would relapse, he failed to take into account the fact that he might relapse himself.

On the fourth day, the chills start, confirming his fears. Yixing stares down at his syringe kit, his mind and body frozen with weariness and despair and deep, deep frustration. He doesn’t want to go through this again. But, of course, he has no choice.

He walks through the all-too-familiar ritual in a daze, grinding bark to powder, mixing the solution and preparing the syringe. It almost slips his mind to sterilize the needle, but he remembers at the last moment, pouring boiled and cooled water from the kettle he put on earlier over metal and glass. The tremble in his hands seems worse than ever before, and it takes him three tries to successfully assemble the wet parts.

Using two hands, he is able to draw the solution into the syringe, but as he has to administer the shot with one hand, he finds himself shaking so badly that the needle slips from his fingers, crashes to the floor and shatters.

He stares, horrified.

It isn’t the end of the world, of course. He has another syringe. But he’d have to go find a stepladder to get it, and prepare another solution, and boil more water, and as it is he’s shivering so hard he can barely stand, and he just...can’t. He just _can’t_.

Frustrated, hopeless tears well in his eyes, and Yixing sinks to the floor next to the shattered glass and spilled medicine. A terrible scream of frustration rips from his throat, guttural and shaky and painful, and he dissolves into sobs.


	4. Chapter 4

Yixing doesn’t want to wake up.

If he wakes up, he’ll have to deal with reality. That he has one of the deadliest diseases the world has seen since the Black Plague. That he is too sick to treat himself properly. Worst of all, that he is utterly alone.

He can’t bring himself to face that reality, not yet. So he rolls over and weakly tugs the blankets over his head, burying himself in a cocoon of denial, and resolutely keeps his eyes closed, planning to stay that way until his exhaustion takes him over again. He’s floated halfway back to dreamland when a stray thought pings softly against his consciousness.

He doesn’t remember getting into his bed.

Eyes flying open, Yixing attempts to sit up. But his muscles don’t cooperate, sickened and exhausted and still shivery, so he ends up sort of flopping weakly around until he’s on his back and can look around.

Yes, he’s definitely in his own room. He looks down and realizes he’s no longer wearing the sweatstained, medicine-soaked clothes he’d fallen unconscious in; he’s been dressed in a clean pair of drawers and a nightshirt. There is literally only one person who would do that.

“Joon?” he calls weakly into the silence of the house.

There’s a moment of silence. Then a rustling sound from the front room. “I’m here, Xing.” 

Gratitude and relief flood Yixing’s system, giving him enough energy to attempt again to sit up. He gets halfway there when Joonmyun opens the door, sees him struggling, and is immediately at his side with a steadying hand on his shoulder. He pulls the pillows up behind Yixing’s back and helps him settle against them.

“You came back,” Yixing breathes, staring up at him in awe. “I didn’t think...How did you know?”

Joonmyun smiles at him, just a slight twitch of his lips. “Your message-boy snitched on you,” he murmurs, settling down on the bed next to Yixing’s knees. “Sought me out and told me you didn’t look well. When your notice didn’t reappear on the board I thought I should come and check on you. I found you passed out in a pool of shattered glass and congealed medicine.” His gentle smile falters, his eyes looked haunted. “I’m so sorry, Yixing. I shouldn’t have left in the first place.”

The guilt in his eyes hurts Yixing far more than even his absence had. “No,” he protests. “Nonono. It isn’t your fault. I should have known better, I’m the doctor here.” And it’s true - he was feeling sickly as early as Christmas Day, he should have realized and started treating himself immediately, not waited until he was too sick to handle a needle.

Joon’s mouth quirks. “I have heard that doctors make the worst patients.”

“It’s because we don’t _have_ any patience,” Yixing jokes weakly, and it takes Joonmyun a minute to pick up on the awful pun. He chuckles, and his fingers weave in between Yixing’s. 

“You’re the most patient person I have ever known,” Joonmyun murmurs, and something in his tone makes Yixing’s chest tighten painfully. If Joon notices his reaction, he doesn’t comment. “What are we to do, then? Your syringe is ruined and you need treatment.”

Yixing squeezes his hand weakly, hoping to reassure. “What kind of a physician would I be if I only had one?” he points out. Joon’s eyes widen hopefully. “The case on top of the cabinets in the treatment room,” Yixing says. “There’s a stepladder in the garden. Be careful, they’re fragile.”

Joonmyun squeezes his hand and goes. Listening to the sounds of him moving around the house, of him bringing in the stepladder and retrieving the case and preparing the medicine in the kitchen, Yixing feels as though his heart is going to pound right out of his ribs. He’s missed Joonmyun’s presence in his house horribly, much more than he even realized.

It takes quite a while for Joonmyun to prepare everything, but he returns with the syringe in his hand, and Yixing holds out a shaky arm, watching fondly as the pirate captain judges the angle and administers the injection with precision and care. Soothing the pricked skin with a swipe of his thumb, Joonmyun sets the emptied syringe on the nightstand and smiles at Yixing.

“There,” he murmurs. “We’ll get it this time, don’t worry.”

_We_. Yixing wants to cry with happiness. “I have no doubts,” he breathes.

 

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Being ill is both harder and easier the second time around. Harder because Yixing had never really recovered the first time, so his body is weak and the symptoms progress faster and hit him in a different order. This time around, he does not lose his ability to breathe, but he falls into convulsions twice, his mind locked in confused terror as his body jerks outside his control, Joonmyun’s low murmurs of reassurance the only thing he has to hold onto. This time, he does not fall unconscious, but he loses strength quickly, becoming so weak that he can barely swallow.

Joonmyun cares for him with an unfailing, almost frightening determination, and his will is what keeps Yixing in good spirits. Joonmyun acts as if he is utterly certain Yixing will be well again, and his certainty is contagious. Recovering becomes, in Yixing’s mind, not an issue of _if_ , but rather an issue of _when_.

Wary of Joon relapsing the way he has, Yixing manages to convince him to begin taking a preventative shot himself once a week, in the hopes of staving off any possibility of the disease resurfacing. They argue over it, because Joonmyun does not think they have enough cinchona left for that, but when raising his voice triggers a fit of hacking coughs in Yixing, Joonmyun quiets, and then acquiesces. Yixing doesn’t like the guilty look in his eyes, but it wins him the argument, so he lets it go without comment.

It is halfway through January when it occurs to Yixing that Joonmyun has missed his ship off the island. Guilt burns in his chest, but he doesn’t say anything, because he is not so good a man as to sacrifice Joonmyun’s company for the sake of Joon’s own sanity. And if Joon thinks about it, he doesn’t show that to Yixing.

By the beginning of February, the coughing has abated and Yixing is once more able to keep down solid foods. With the return of his appetite, Yixing’s strength begins to recover, and by the end of the month he is once more on his feet.

Throughout it all, Joonmyun digs himself into Yixing’s life, into his home and his routine, with a driven determination that Yixing finds at once endearing and unsettling. He makes no mention of leaving again, and returns promptly from every trip he must make down to the city. Even when Yixing is able to open his practice again, Joonmyun remains at his side, carrying and fetching, or assisting in moving his patients when he doesn’t have the strength, or distracting children while their parents are being examined. 

In the kitchen one morning while Joon is still abed, erasing the slate on which they keep a chalk-drawn calendar, Yixing begins drawing the chart for April and realizes with a start that in just over three months, _Two Moons_ will be back in port and looking for their captain. The notion makes his hand fall weakly to his side, and he collapses in a nearby chair, staring up at his unfinished calendar unseeing. Three months more, and Yixing will again be alone.

Five years, he reminds himself sternly. For _five years_ he was alone, and it didn’t bother him in the slightest. He has company enough in his patients, in the shopkeepers he frequents. He is a grown man and does not need someone to be beside him all the time.

But Yixing can no longer imagine a life without Joonmyun by his side, without his smiles and his humor and his will and his touch. He’s well enough now that he no longer relies on Joonmyun to function, but Joon has stayed anyway, and it is no longer a matter of _needing_ him, so much as _wanting_ him. (That he _loves_ him is an issue which must not come into play in this debate; things are complicated enough.) If Yixing could, he would gladly keep Joonmyun here, with him, in his house, for as long as they both would live, and that revelation is unnerving.

It cannot be, though. Joonmyun is too headstrong, too enterprising. He will grow restless if forced to stay, and the only thing worse than the idea of him leaving Yixing behind is the idea that he might stay, and come to resent Yixing for clipping his wings. No. Yixing must let him go, and content himself with seeing Joonmyun once every year or two, when someone gets injured enough to warrant a visit. And maybe, when they’re both older and some of the wanderlust has faded, Joonmyun might someday return to him, and they might make a life here together. Yixing could wait.

He didn’t have a choice.

“Are you alright?” 

Yixing looks up, and sees Joonmyun, blithely underdressed in his drawers and nothing else, leaning against the door frame with sleep-mussed hair and a drowsy but concerned expression. He’s utterly gorgeous and Yixing’s heart lurches painfully.

“I’m fine,” he says, trying on a soft smile that feels tight at the corners. “Just thinking.” Pushing to his feet, Yixing busies himself with completing the calendar to keep himself from staring at Joonmyun’s near-nakedness. “We should go down to market today,” he says nonchalantly. “There’s a few supplies I need and we could use some provisions as well.”

“Hmm.” Joonmyun wanders up behind him, resting his chin on Yixing’s shoulder with one hand comfortably around his waist. Yixing’s hand - and breath - stutters. He’s so warm and solid, his voice in Yixing’s ear rusty with sleep. “April already, huh? Yes, alright, if you think you’re up for the walk.” He yawns. His fingers clench reflexively in Yixing’s shirt as he does, scraping lightly across his stomach, and Yixing feels a flush start up his neck. “Let me get dressed. And dunk my head.”

Silently, Yixing nods, and Joon pulls away, wandering back to the treatment room. 

As it turns out, a patient knocks on Yixing’s door at just that moment, and Yixing has to throw on respectable clothes and go do his job. Another shows up before the first has even left, this one with three fussy children who all need to be looked at, and by the time Yixing is finally done it is midafternoon and he has yet to eat, let alone get to market. Joonmyun makes them tea with bread and soup and cheese and insists that Yixing eat it before they leave, which Yixing does, gratefully, thinking wryly that Joonmyun has missed his true calling as nursemaid.

It’s the first time since Christmas Eve that Yixing has been down the mountain; for the last three months either Joonmyun has run the errands or they have sent the errand-boy to do so. Yixing is a little out of breath when they reach the town, and Joonmyun is hovering like a hen, reaching out to touch Yixing every time he so much as breathes the wrong way. It’s endearing and frustrating at the same time, and Yixing is for some reason hyper-aware of every time Joon takes hold of his elbow or wraps a supporting arm around his waist. Such touches are in no way outside normality, particularly not for them and particularly not considering Yixing’s condition, but Yixing’s heart stutters every time. More than once, Joonmyun notices Yixing tensing or holding his breath in unconscious reaction, and it only makes him hover more.

When they pass from rough-hewn dirt pathways to cobblestone roads, Joonmyun pulls back a bit and Yixing finds it easier to breathe and walk in a straight line at the same time. By now, the sun is beginning to set and the town is coming to life, and the further they go the more crowded, more rowdy the streets become. Joon swaggers at Yixing’s side with his head held high and his hand resting on the pommel of his cutlass, as if daring anyone to give them trouble. He’s handsome as anything and his bravado is endearing and Yixing tries not to smile at him too obviously.

They stop at the apothecary first, and Yixing takes his time browsing the shelves and discussing the latest shipment with the shopkeep. He ends up purchasing a rough-bound French medical journal that the shopkeep has somehow acquired in addition to the supplies on his list, and with the promise of something new and interesting to read has a spring in his step and a smile on his face when he exits the shop.

He looks around for Joonmyun, who wandered outside after it became apparent Yixing was going to be awhile, and pulls up short. The pirate is leaning against the side of the shop, talking animatedly with a dark-haired woman in a bottle-green dress. He laughs, his smile bright and beautiful, and Yixing’s good mood abruptly deflates. Everything about Joon’s demeanor screams _flirtation_ and Yixing has no right to be jealous, he _doesn’t_ , but of course he _is_. 

Joonmyun glances up over the woman’s head and spots him, and his bright smile somehow widens and softens at the same time. He gestures, and Yixing puts on a genteel smile as he approaches, shifting his parcel under his arm so that he may bow over the hand the woman offers him.

“May I present Doctor Zhang Yixing?” Joonmyun murmurs, and there is humor in his tone, a bit of playful mocking to his overformal words. “Yixing, this is Sandara. She’s a... _friend_ …of Chanyeol’s.” He raises an eyebrow.

A harlot, he means. In this town, it’s hardly surprising. “A pleasure, madam,” Yixing says. 

“So you’re the doctor on the hill,” Sandara observes, returning his bow with a nod of her own. “We heard you was feelin’ sickly, sir. Glad to see you up and about.”

Yixing blinks at her in surprise. “Am I a subject of town gossip, then?”

Joon grins at his surprise, and Sandara giggles, snapping open her fan in a way that is clearly meant to be flirtatious. “Of course ye are. Living up there all alone, mysterious-like. People talk.”

“I get asked about you all the time,” Joonmyun tells him, and Yixing’s wide eyes widen further. “Young ladies, in particular, want to know if you’re really as handsome as they’ve heard tell.” He winks. “I tell them the rumors do you _great_ injustice.”

It takes Yixing a moment to process Joonmyun’s meaning, and once it sinks in he feels a hot blush climb his cheeks. His mouth opens to protest, but nothing comes out.

“He’s not wrong,” Sandara adds, with a quite suggestive wink of her own. And Yixing would love to come up with some witty retort to disguise his fluster, but his mind has ceased to function entirely, because not only did Joonmyun just accuse him of being handsome, apparently he regularly tells _others_ as well.

“I…” He swallows, hard. “I can’t imagine my life would be particularly interesting to speculate upon.” There, that will do. It saves him from gaping like a fish, anyway.

“Despite appearances,” Sandara tells him, “our lives here can be _shockingly_ monotonous. I’m afraid I must take my leave, gentlemen. Have a pleasant evening.” She closes her fan, taps it teasingly against Yixing’s cheek, and saunters away, skirt swishing. Yixing watches her go with something like awe.

Joonmyun’s laughing at him. “She’s a hell of a woman, isn’t she?” he says with a grin, and Yixing abruptly realizes how his red face and openmouthed stare could be interpreted.

“She’s certainly interesting,” Yixing acquiesces. “Kim Joonmyun, it seems you and I need to have a discussion about spreading rumors.”

He pins Joonmyun with a stern look which is utterly ignored. “I’m afraid not, Doctor,” Joonmyun says, slinging an arm comfortably around his shoulders with another of those incredible sunlit smiles. Yixing is glad he’s already blushing - it covers up his blush. “You’re just going to have to become accustomed to the notion that people find you interesting.”

They fall into step, headed down deeper into the marketplace and the throngs of people. “I can’t imagine why,” Yixing grumbles. 

“You can’t?” Joon asks. “A handsome young man with a mysterious past, living alone in the woods at the top of a mountain, no King, no country, and no one ever sees him except for the people he heals? The tale practically writes itself.” He jostles Yixing’s shoulders companionably. “How do you think we knew where to go, that first night? We wouldn’t have hauled Chanyeol an hour up the mountain in his state unless we knew there was a doctor at the other end. You came highly recommended, and we were not disappointed.”

Yixing blinks at him. He’s honestly never thought of that before.

“Xing,” Joon says, stopping in the middle of the road and turning to look at Yixing with an incredulous expression. “Do you honestly not know how many people you’ve touched? How much of this town owes you their lives, or the lives of their loved ones?” Yixing stares at him blankly, because...no. He actually has no idea. He never leaves his house, how would he know? Joon sees his confusion and shakes his head. “Heavens. You really are something else.”

The fond smile on Joon’s face is making Yixing’s heart go into palpitations. Yixing takes a deep breath and averts his eyes, attempting to calm himself, because the last thing his still-weak body needs is cardiac arrhythmia.

That’s shot right to hell when a warm hand cups the back of his neck and pulls Yixing close. For a fleeting moment Yixing thinks Joonmyun is going to kiss him and panics, but he only tucks Yixing against his side, sliding his arm down to a more companionable and less intimate hold around his shoulders. “Come on,” Joonmyun murmurs. “We need to get to market before all the vendors leave.”

He’s right, and as it is the marketplace is less crowded than usual and many of the vendors have already sold out and are closing down for the day. They manage to find the majority of what they need, though it is dark when they are finished, and Joon insists on carrying their parcels, a stack in his arms almost too high to see over. He seems to have no trouble at all with it, cheerfully telling Yixing the story of exactly how Chanyeol came to meet Sandara, complete with a comedic interpretation of Chanyeol’s deep voice, his wild-eyed grin and his ridiculous, larger-than life manner. Yixing can almost see Chanyeol in Joonmyun’s place and is giggling madly at his antics when he feels rough hands around his mouth and neck and is yanked off his feet.

Yixing faintly hears Joonmyun yell in surprise before he hits the ground, thrown forcibly by his attacker in such a way that his temple bounces off the cobblestone. Dazed, Yixing can’t force his limbs to work, and panic shortens his breath to be helpless like this as he feels those same rough hands search his body. A tug at his belt and the snapping of broken string tells him his purse has been taken, and then the hands are gone. It’s over in seconds.

Though his world is spinning and he feels sick, fear for Joonmyun gets him moving, and he manages, through sheer will, to open his eyes and get his hands under him enough to look up over his shoulder.

There’s three men, dressed in dark, ratty clothes with cloths over their noses and mouths, against one Joonmyun. Joon already has his sword out, the parcels dropped in the mud, and is locked in combat with two of them while the third takes off down the street with Yixing’s purse in hand. Unable to do anything else, Yixing watches with unfocused eyes as Joon, who looks angrier and more fearsome than Yixing had thought possible, slams one of the attackers right in the jaw with the heavy brass handguard of his cutlass. Blood and teeth go flying and the man goes down in a heap, and Joon turns immediately to the other, swinging a heavy blow that would have cleaved him collarbone to navel if it hadn’t been blocked.

Yixing tries to push himself up, to get to his feet and help Joon, but his arms collapse under him, all of his strength stolen away. He is vaguely aware of hot blood pouring down the side of his face and thinks, _head wounds always bleed so much_. His vision is graying, but he knows somewhere that he cannot let himself fall unconscious, not with a knock to the head like this. He’s terrified for Joon, but he can’t concentrate on anything else other than _don’t pass out, whatever you do don’t pass out._

The world is swimming too badly for Yixing to gauge the passage of time, so it is an indeterminate amount of time later that he feels hands around his shoulders. He thinks for a brief moment that he is being attacked again, but then he recognizes the grip. Joon.

“Xing,” he’s saying, and he sounds so panicked. That’s no good. “My God, Yixing, speak to me!”

Yixing blinks, but all he sees in the dim evening light is a pale blur. He can’t tell if Joon is injured. “You...alright?” he asks groggily.

A short, harsh bark of a laugh. “You’re gushing a bloody river and you’re asking about me. That’s a good sign, I suppose.” Something presses against the side of Yixing’s head. “Stay with me,” Joon urges as he wraps something around the wound. “Don’t you dare leave me now.”

Yixing tries on a reassuring smile. He’s pretty sure it comes out crooked and grotesque, but oh well, it’s the best he can do. “Never,” he tells him. “Not...an idiot...thanks.”

He thinks he feels the brush of lips against his forehead, but he’s probably imagining that. He’s concussed, after all.

“...stitches?” he asks. 

Joon’s face is still swimming in his vision, but he can make out a nod. “At least two, if I’m not mistaken,” he says. “Can you talk me through them?”

“I...believe so…”

“Good man.” Joonmyun’s arms are solid around him. “How about walking, can you manage that?”

Yixing blinks at him. “I’ll do...my damndest.”

Even blurry, Joonmyun’s smile is bright. “I’d expect nothing less. C’mon, Doctor, up you get.” 

He lifts, and Yixing struggles to get his feet under him, and goodness, but Joonmyun is really _strong_. They manage to get Yixing upright, but the change in angle has his head swimming and his stomach turning and the world sways. Joon catches him, holding him tightly around the ribs, and Yixing breathes through the nausea until the street comes back into something that resembles focus. 

“Y’know,” he murmurs into Joon’s shoulder. “Don’t think I’m...going t’ make it...up the mountain.”

A tight chuckle. “We’re not going that far,” Joon says. “We need to stop this bleeding first. C’mon, one foot in front of the other.”

Yixing does his best to obey. It’s slow going, and Joon is half-carrying him, but they make it down the street and around the corner. When Joonmyun pushes a door open and Yixing is assaulted with bright light and raucous voices and loud, jaunty music, he realizes fuzzily that they must be at the inn, Anna’s inn and tavern.

His guess is correct, as demonstrated when Anna herself bustles up to them. “Heavens!” she exclaims. “What happened?”

“Hooligans,” Joon murmurs under his breath. “I need a room and I can’t pay you immediately. They got both our purses.”

Anna pulls out a large key ring, jangling loudly even in the din of the tavern. “Ye say that as if I don’t trust ye,” she admonishes. “Honestly, Captain, I’m hurt.”

Joon smiles widely. “You’re an angel come to earth, Anna.”

“Hmmph. Tell that to me husband.” She bustles off, and Joonmyun and Yixing follow her, Yixing pressing a hand to the wall to assist his teetering balance. 

At the foot of the stairs, Yixing makes to lift his foot and nearly topples over before Joonmyun catches him. Grumbling unintelligibly to himself about doctors who don’t know their own limitations, Joon bends down and scoops Yixing right off his feet, lifting him bridal-style. Thrown by the sudden change in angle, Yixing makes a small, unmanly noise and clings with all his remaining strength to Joon’s neck as Joon starts up the stairs.

“I’m not going to drop you,” Joon huffs exasperatedly. “You feel like a child, anyway, you’ve lost too much weight.”

Yixing pouts. “Been sick,” he points out.

“Yeah,” Joon murmurs. “I know.”

Anna opens the room for them, and Joon goes ahead and just sets Yixing right on the bed, holding him upright while Anna stacks the pillows against the headboard. Joon carefully lays Yixing back, straddling his hips and reaching around him to arrange the pillows more comfortably. Yixing thinks dazedly that with Joon leaning over him like that he feels rather like a virgin on her wedding night, pressed down into the sheets while her new husband tells her to relax and think of England, and giggles at the image.

“I think you’re drunk on blood loss,” Joon mutters. “Anna, can I get a needle and thread, and a bottle of rum?”

“Aye, lad. Be right back.” 

The door closes, blocking out some of the noise from below. Yixing stares up at Joonmyun’s defocused face.

“You’re pretty,” he mutters under his breath.

“I am not,” Joon says, flashing a grin. “I am ruggedly handsome.” Yixing smiles crookedly at him and Joonmyun chucks Yixing very gently under the chin. “You’re the pretty one. All the girls say so, remember?”

“Pfft.” Yixing’s eyes flutter closed. “Blind, all of them.” 

Warm hands cup his cheeks. “You can’t fall asleep, Xing,” Joonmyun says, and all the teasing is gone from his voice. He sounds worried, so very worried. “Remember? You have to tell me how to stitch you up.”

Right. Right. No sleeping. Concussion. He knows that. “Stitching’s easy,” he mumbles. “Make x’s. Like this.” He holds his hands up, crossing his index fingers to demonstrate what he means. It takes all of the strength in his body to do so, and his hands drop again almost immediately. “So th’ skin don’t pull.” He makes a face. “Doesn’t. _Doesn’t_ pull.” Grammar, what’s grammar? His mother would be shocked.

“See, I didn’t know that.” Another brush of lips against his forehead, and Yixing’s starting to think he’s not imagining it. “What would I do without you?”

Yixing grins sloppily. “Die of malaria, apparently.”

Shocked, Joon bursts into laughter. “You’re horrible,” he gasps, and Yixing reaches out to poke his hand playfully. Joonmyun grabs his fingers before he can and laces them in his own.

“Xing…” Joon sighs. “I’m sorry. I didn’t protect you.”

Yixing shakes his head, squeezing Joon’s fingers weakly. “Not your job,” he says. “I wasn’t looking...I didn’t see them.” He closes his eyes again, just to rest them. “Too busy...looking at you.”

Silence. Some tiny voice in Yixing’s head whispers, _what did you just say?_ but the rest of him is too out of it to register. He hears the door open, and Joonmyun’s weight moves off his legs. Murmuring voices tell him Anna has returned.

He’s floating in and out of consciousness when a little shake brings him back to the surface. “Yixing,” Joon is calling. “Xing, come on. Help me.”

Yixing’s eyes flutter open. Joon’s got a bottle in one hand and a needle threaded with thick black thread in the other. Stitches. Right, stitches.

“Soak the needle and thread in the rum,” Yixing murmurs. “To...to sterilize. Do the wound, too...give me the rest.”

Joon blinks and stops mid-motion. “The rest of the rum? You don’t drink.”

Not usually, no. “Painkiller,” he mumbles. “Alcohol...numbs pain...along with sense.”

“Right,” Joon says. “I knew that.” Doing as he’s told, Joonmyun pours a little rum in a dish and drops in the needle, then helps Yixing to pour a good portion of the rest down his throat. It burns horribly, somehow sweet and bitter at the same time, but Yixing swallows it, knowing even through his haze that the faster it gets into his system the easier this will be on both of them. That done, Joon tips the bottle over a rag and starts cleaning the wound. It stings like hell but Yixing grits his teeth and bears it without complaint, because he knows it could be far worse.

“Alright,” Joon breathes. “Stitches. You said x’s, right?” Yixing nods blearily. “How big should I make them?”

It takes a second for Yixing to parse the question, and another for him to remember the answer. “No wider than...your smallest fingernail,” he says softly, raising his pinky finger to show what he means. “First stitch...under the wound,” he explains, hoping he’s being clear enough and trying to demonstrate with weak hands. “Knot thread...around itself. It’ll...shrink...because rum. Then, x’s...then knot...at th’ other end.” His sentences are broken up oddly by his breath, which is becoming labored.

“Got it.” Joonmyun is straddling his legs again, sitting high up on Yixing’s thighs so he can clearly see the wound, and his body is so close that Yixing can feel him radiating heat. Yixing’s hands land on Joon’s thighs, curving around the muscle shakily. “I’m sorry, this is probably going to hurt.”

Yixing swallows and closes his eyes. “In...inescapably,” he murmurs. “Do it.”

It does hurt, but Yixing has had worse. Joon’s hands are gentle and steady, and he doesn’t flinch at all when Yixing’s fingers curl harshly into his thighs. Long minutes later, Joon cuts the tail end of the thread with his knife, and Yixing collapses back into the pillows, winded as though he just ran a mile.

“Should I wrap it, then?” Joon asks, and Yixing nods weakly, because that’s a good idea. It will probably continue to ooze blood for a while.

It isn’t until Joonmyun is halfway through wrapping his head that Yixing realizes, “Oh. Our purchases.”

Joon shakes his head. “I was able to grab the book you bought,” he says. “They took the medicine. And the goods all landed in the mud, they were ruined.” His eyes are narrowing. “Good-for-nothing lowlifes. They were lucky I didn’t run them _all_ through.”

Oh. _Oh._ Yixing was so busy being concussed that he hadn’t even looked to see the outcome of the fight. “Are any still alive?” he asks quietly.

“I only got the one,” Joon growls. “His mistake for crossing me.” He looks down at Yixing, whose eyes are wide. “Oh, Xing, I’m sorry, I forgot. Do no harm, and all that.” He looks a bit shamed, now, color rising to his cheeks. 

Yixing shakes his head. “I’m not...totally naive, Joon,” he says. “It’s an uncivilised world.” Violent death is always regrettable, but not uncommon in Tortuga, and Joon is, after all, a pirate. He forgets that sometimes.

“I am not usually so eager to end a life,” Joonmyun murmurs. “But all I’d seen was you lying still and bloody on the stones, and I thought...well.” He sighs. “My temper got the best of me, I’m afraid.” He ties off the bandages and sits back on his heels, still straddling Yixing’s thighs. “You’re in no shape to walk up a mountain,” he sighs. “We’ll stay here tonight.”

Yixing blinks. “There’s only one bed,” he points out. 

Joon cocks an eyebrow at him. “That hasn’t been an issue in the past, has it?”

Well. No. But...Yixing blinks. He can’t come up with a ‘but’. He’s pretty sure there’s one there, but he can’t find it.

“Alright,” he acquiesces. 

“Should you eat?” Joon asks, and Yixing thinks about it.

“Probably.” He’s still a little nauseous, but he needs the energy and he hasn’t eaten much at all today. That light tea Joonmyun made earlier seems years ago. “You take such good care of me,” he murmurs, getting a little teary-eyed at the thought.

“Hey, none of that,” Joon says, swiping his thumb under Yixing’s eyes. “That’s the concussion talking. Can you stay awake while I go beg some scraps from Anna?”

Yixing nods. “I’ll do my best.” Now that he’s not actively dripping blood down his face, his mind feels a little clearer. He’s tired, he’s so tired, but he thinks he can stay awake.

He’s not quite correct about that, though, and without Joon to distract him he drifts off quickly. Joon wakes him a few minutes later with panic in his eyes, but Yixing manages to pull himself out of unconsciousness. Relieved, Joon sits at his bedside and feeds him, caring for him in a way that has become very familiar to them both over the last few months. When Yixing can eat no more, Joon eats the rest, and then climbs onto the bed and sits against the headboard, his hip pressing against Yixing’s.

He is warm, and close, and feels like home. Between the blood loss and the concussion and the rum, the world is unfocused and softly glowing, and Yixing sees nothing unusual in shifting down a little so he can cuddle against Joon’s chest like a child. Joonmyun, for his part, wraps his arm around Yixing’s back and holds him close while he reads aloud from Yixing’s new medical journal, stopping every few sentences to make Yixing answer questions about what he’s reading. It’s an obvious ploy to keep Yixing awake, and he is grateful for it, especially because Joonmyun clearly has no idea what he is reading and can’t possibly be very interested in it.

Eventually, though, not even the talk of rare diseases can keep Yixing awake, and he taps Joonmyun on the chest and says, “It’s been hours. I’m probably alright to sleep.”

Joon gives him a considering look. “Are you certain?”

“As I can be.” Yixing shrugs and sleepily burrows closer to Joonmyun’s solid warmth. “I can barely keep my eyes open.”

“You’ve had a long day,” Joonmyun murmurs. “Alright. Go to sleep.”

He doesn’t move, and Yixing doesn’t ask him to. He just rests the undamaged side of his head against Joon’s chest and listens for his steady heartbeat.

He’s nearly asleep when he feels, through the dreamy haze, Joon’s warm hand smoothing over his hair. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” Joon whispers. “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Mmm. Maybe he is asleep, after all. 

“I love you,” Yixing murmurs into his shirt, before losing consciousness entirely.


	5. Chapter 5

The stitches come out near the end of April, and on the first of May, Yixing is awoken by clanging and rattling from the kitchen. Frowning in confusion - Joonmyun’s basically _never_ up before he is - Yixing stumbles groggily into the kitchen in his drawers and leans on the doorway, blinking owlishly at the scene in front of him. Joonmyun’s got the basket in which Yixing’s Christmas dinner was delivered set out on the table, and it seems like every provision in the house is spread out around it.

“Joon?” Yixing asks blearily. Joonmyun looks up, looking rather suspiciously like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh. You’re awake,” he observes.

“Yes,” Yixing says pointedly. “Bit difficult not to be, really.” He waves a hand at the mess. “What’s all this, then?”

“Yes. Well.” Joonmyun shrugs in what he probably thinks is a nonchalant way. “It’s May Day, isn’t it. I thought we should celebrate.”

Yixing blinks. “By emptying the pantry?”

“A picnic!” Is he _nervous?_ It’s hard to tell, Yixing’s not sure he’s _ever_ seen Joonmyun nervous so he has nothing to compare it to. “We spend far too much time in this house. I thought maybe we could hike further up the mountain, find some nice clearing or something and stop to eat.”

Oh. Put like that, it does sound like a nice way to spend the day. “I don’t really like leaving the house for that long,” Yixing says, rather regretfully. “What if a patient comes knocking? It’s bad enough they have to hike an hour just to see me, I’d hate for anyone to come up here for nothing.”

Joonmyun flaps a hand at him dismissively. It’s an unusually effuse gesture for him, and Yixing thinks maybe he is right about the nerves. “It’ll just be for a few hours,” he assures Yixing. “You can leave a note on the door. _Out on holiday, will return midafternoon. Please have a seat._ You can even leave one of those wooden chairs out front if you’re that concerned.” He crosses the room and braces his hands on the outside of Yixing’s shoulders. “Come on, Xing, you need to get out more. You live in the Caribbean and you’re white as an Easter lily, I’m pretty sure that’s an affront to God.”

Joon’s hands are very warm on Yixing’s skin, drawing his attention to the fact that he is extremely underdressed. Joon is of course paying his nakedness no mind, but Yixing pulls away, feeling a flush start up his neck. And as Joon just pointed out, he is very pale - any hint of a blush shows far to easily.

“You are not exactly a dark-skinned native yourself, you know,” he points out, rather more snidely than he meant it. 

If Joon takes offense, he doesn’t show it. “Not for want of trying,” he says cheerily. “Too much Irish in my blood, I suppose. And I’m still darker than you, my hermit friend.” He lays his arm atop Yixing’s, and yes, he has a bare shade more color to his skin. It’s not really a fair comparison and they both know it, since until a month ago Yixing had been too weak to make the long trip down to the town, and there’s really no other reason to leave the property.

Yixing pulls away, but Joon’s fingers cling, trailing across his skin in a way that sends shivers all up his arm. “Fine,” he acquiesces. “When shall we leave?”

Joon’s grin is brilliant and makes it well worth giving in. “Let me finish putting the basket together first.” He stops as he is pulling away, and his eyes drop down Yixing’s body and back up again. “You may wish to get dressed,” he points out, with a sly quirk of his eyebrow.

Yixing flees before his flush takes over his entire face.

 

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Despite Yixing insisting that he is perfectly capable of carrying a _picnic basket_ , for Heaven’s sake, Joonmyun both carries the basket and leads the way. The mountain is heavily forested around Yixing’s home, but the forest thins as they climb, the ground steeper and rockier and harder to navigate. After an hour or so, they reach the peak of the mountain, such as it is, and stop briefly to rest.

Yixing leans against one of the few trees that have thrived this far up and looks out over the island. From here he can see the town below, and the port; he can see the plantations on the far western edge of the island and the untouched white beaches on the other side of the mountain, where there is not enough flat space for civilization. They’re high enough, and the island small enough, that from here the deep turquoise of the Caribbean can be seen on the horizon in all directions.

“Beautiful,” Joonmyun murmurs, and Yixing nods, because it certainly is. “See what you miss when you never leave your house?”

Shooting him a playful glare, Yixing murmurs, “I’m sorry, Captain, are you trying to hint at something? You may need to be more explicit, I am a direct man.”

Joon snorts. “Of course, my apologies. I will try to be less subtle in the future.” He sets the picnic basket down and stretches, arching his back until it pops and swinging his arms to loosen them. They’ve both forgone jackets today in anticipation of the heat, and the sun shines right through Joon’s thin white shirt as he arches, highlighting the curve of his spine in silhouette. Yixing’s mouth goes dry and he looks away.

“Are you hungry?” Joon asks. “We could stop here to eat. Or we could continue down the other side and eat there.” He points down the mountain, at a completely undisturbed beach surrounding a small lagoon. 

Yixing glances up at the sun. It’s still early, and the beach looks quite inviting. “Let’s keep going,” he suggests. “By the time we’re down there I’m sure I will have worked up an appetite.” He pushes off the tree, scoops up the basket before Joon can realize what he’s doing and starts down the other side of the mountain.

Joonmyun yells after him indignantly, and Yixing grins to himself and starts jogging, then running down the mountainside, gravity aiding him in gaining speed, reaching out a hand to catch himself on tree trunks as he skids past. Pounding footsteps tell him Joon is following, and sure enough within moments strong arms wrap around his waist and they go tumbling back in a heap against the steep, rocky ground. Yixing falls mostly on top of Joonmyun, the basket knocked from his hands and the breath knocked from his lungs.

“Got you,” Joonmyun growls playfully, and Yixing’s giggling so hard he can barely move, but he tries, knowing he is probably crushing Joon into the rocks. Joon holds him fast, and they end up just sort of half-rolling onto their sides. There’s stones digging into Yixing’s hips and ribs but he can’t bring himself to care, because Joon his literally breathing down his neck and it’s sending delightful shivers all down his spine.

They lay together and catch their breath for a few moments before Joon pushes himself up on his elbow, leaning over Yixing’s shoulder to peer at his face. His cheeks are pink with exertion. “You’d built up quite the momentum there,” he points out. “What would you have done had I not caught you?”

An excellent question. “Crashed into a tree, most likely,” Yixing admits with a grin.

Joon rolls his eyes and huffs exasperatedly. “It has been too long since you left the house,” he declares. “You’ve forgotten how nature works.” He pushes up, taking a moment to find his footing on the rocky incline and brush himself off, then reaches down and pulls Yixing to his feet. “Honestly. Acting like a rambunctious boy.”

“You’re the one who chased me,” Yixing retorts, and Joon doesn’t seem to have an answer for that. He gets to the basket first, much to Yixing’s chagrin - that was the point of all this, after all - but does not let go of Yixing’s hand as they start off down the mountain at a more adult pace. It’s surprising, and, if Yixing is honest with himself, quite exciting, but it likely stems from Joonmyun’s exasperatingly protective streak so Yixing tries not to think too much of it. He does, however, turn his hand slightly so their fingers intertwine, purely for the comfort and security of it, understand.

Going down the mountain takes considerably less time than going up it, and even though one or both of them stumbles or falls several times, they make it down to flat ground before the sun reaches its zenith. The trees and rocks give way to white Caribbean sand, to pebbles and shells and skittering creatures. Joon sets the basket down on a flat boulder in the shade of the treeline, yanks off his boots and stockings and runs barefoot into the water without a second glance. Laughing at his antics - you can take the man from the sea, but apparently not the sea out of the man - Yixing settles down on the rock and starts unpacking the basket. The contents are a bit shaken up, but apparently Joon knows very well how to pack provisions so nothing is ruined.

He is uncorking the wine when Joon comes back, breathless and grinning, his sleeves rolled up and his legs bare to the knee and his feet sandy and wet, and he is so handsome Yixing can barely stand to look at him, and hands him the wine bottle wordlessly with his eyes on the basket of food.

“I’m getting you into the water, you know,” Joonmyun says as he takes a swig of the wine. “If I have to _throw_ you in.”

Yixing wouldn’t put it past him. “May I finish my lunch, first?” he asks plaintively. Joon laughs and hands him back the wine, and they dig in.

The day is hot and muggy as always, but here in the shade and with the breeze coming off the water it’s quite pleasant. The bread and meat are warmed from the sun, the cheese soft and easily cut, and after the morning’s exertion the simple food tastes wonderful. They eat quickly and Yixing convinces Joon to sit with him for a while while they digest, but soon the pirate grows impatient and drags him by the wrist into the water. 

Joonmyun plays rough, like an oversized and rather excitable puppy, but Yixing is used to it by now and gives back as good as he gets. It isn’t long before they’re both soaked through, the salty seawater stinging Yixing’s eyes and the minor abrasions on his arms from his earlier stumbles, but it’s warm and beautiful and eventually Yixing just flops down in the shallows, the waves crashing over his bare legs, and tips his head back to turn his face up to the sun. Joonmyun is right - he has spent far too much time indoors in the past year.

Stumbling up out of the water with laughter on his lips, Joonmyun falls to all fours and crawls the rest of the way towards Yixing, finally dropping forward onto his stomach with a long exhale of exhausted contentment. He lifts his sandy feet and crosses them in the air, folding his arms in front of him and propping his chin on his wrists. They lay in silence, cooled by their soaking clothes and warmed by the sun. 

Eventually, Yixing feels his face beginning to burn and rolls onto his side, intending to suggest they begin the three-hour journey back home. His words die in his throat when he sees Joonmyun is asleep, his handsome face turned towards Yixing and peacefully lax.

Something awful and beautiful and painful and _perfect_ lodges noticeably in Yixing’s throat, and he thinks that this moment has made every horrible thing he has endured in the past ten months well worth it. Salted wetness of a different kind wells in his eyes, and he quickly wipes it away, musing ruefully that he has shed more tears over Kim Joonmyun than he has over the loss of his family, his country, and his freedom combined.

He only has a little over two months left with this man, and he knows he should make the most of it. For now, though, Yixing just scoots closer, angling himself such that his head is pillowed on Joonmyun’s arm, their faces a breath apart, and watches Joon sleep until he falls asleep himself.

 

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The crash of a cold saltwater wave over their heads brings both men yelling and spluttering awake at the same moment. Yixing pushes wet, sandy hair out of his wet, sandy face with a wet, sandy hand and glares balefully over his shoulder at the Caribbean. 

“Good Lord,” he hears, and looks to the side to see an equally drowned and dirty Joonmyun staring at the western sky, which is streaked with pale orange. “How long did we sleep? The sun is setting!”

Still groggy, it takes Yixing a long moment to process precisely why that is important. Then he remembers - the note on his door said _back by midafternoon_.

“Blast it!” he mutters, and drags himself to his feet. His forearms and calves and the back of his neck all scream at him at the same moment; he looks and sure enough he’s toasted the color of a New England lobster. Instantly concerned, he grabs Joon’s fingers and pulls his arm closer, and yes, Joon’s exposed skin is the same bright red. Thankfully neither of them were idiotic enough to take off their shirts, and their faces were for the most part turned away from the sun, so the damage is limited.

Joonmyun sees what he is looking at and reverses the grip, pulling Yixing’s arm closer to inspect his skin. “You burn as badly as I do, sir,” he mutters. “I hope you have some fantastical remedy for this?”

“I have a cream that will soothe the heat, but it will have to heal on its own,” Yixing says. “We need to get back. I sincerely hope no one has been waiting on me.” Joonmyun nods his agreement and both men start up the beach towards the rock with their leftovers and their discarded boots.

The remains of their lunch are overtaken by ants and likely rancid in any case, so they leave that behind, quickly shaking out their shoes and stockings and brushing off sandy feet as best they can before pulling them on. Yixing finds a tiny crab has crawled into one of his boots; he dumps it out and inspects the leather thoroughly as the crab scuttles away rather indignantly. Joon, who has the better sense of direction, studies the mountain for a moment before choosing his path, and they take off at a brisk pace.

Hiking up the mountain always takes so much longer than hiking down it, and Yixing is glad the last leg of their trip will be downhill. They discuss for a moment attempting to hike around the side of the mountain rather than straight up the peak and back down again, but come to the consensus that it would be too easy to overshoot the house that way and would probably take just as long in any case; this mountain is far wider than it is tall.

Conversation turns to sunburn remedies and how Yixing has been wanting to keep an aloe vera plant in his garden, but as they must be imported from Africa he has yet to have the opportunity. Joonmyun says he’ll bring him one someday, and Yixing falls silent, reminded once again that they have only a limited time remaining together. He listens with half an ear as Joonmyun talks about his crew, about Jongin and Chanyeol and Kris who never seem to have trouble with sunburns, and about Baekhyun and Chen and Kyungsoo who stay belowdecks or wear large hats (mostly Baek with the hats, it seems) to keep from burning. It’s so clear how much he misses them, how he longs to be out there on his ship again, even if he does not come right out and say it, and it makes Yixing’s heart ache, both for Joonmyun and for himself when Joon leaves.

They finally reach the peak of the mountain as the sun begins to set in earnest, sinking into the deep blue Caribbean and streaking both sky and sea with pink and orange and red and purple. They stop for a moment to rest, and Yixing’s darkened mood has him tugging Joonmyun down to sit next to him on the thick trunk of a fallen tree. Ignoring propriety, he wraps his arm around Joon’s still-damp waist and rests his temple against Joon’s. Joonmyun obligingly pulls him close, his fingers closing around Yixing’s shoulder.

“Tired?” he asks, clearly concerned.

“I suppose,” Yixing hedges noncommittally. He’s not, really, though his legs are unused to walking this much and his body will certainly regret all this in the morning. Mostly, though, he just selfishly doesn’t want this day to end, doesn’t want to let Joonmyun go, doesn’t want him to leave. Not today, or in two months, or _ever_ , really.

“I’m going to miss you,” he murmurs.

Joon’s fingers tighten almost painfully into Yixing’s shoulder, but he is silent. Then, after a long moment, he says, “It’s been three years.”

Yixing blinks, pulling away a little so he can see Joon’s face. “Three years of what?”

A smile, close-mouthed and tight at the corners. “Three years since we dragged Chanyeol an hour up the mountain with a broken leg. Three years tonight since I knocked on your door.”

Oh.

_Oh._

“You’re sure?” Yixing says wonderingly. “Three years tonight?”

Joon nods. “I remember because it was May Day,” he murmurs. “That was why we were docked; we were on holiday. Chanyeol spotted a man harassing Sandara at the inn, he intervened and got a bottle broken in his chest for his trouble. Next thing I know it’s my crew against the entire damn inn. We got out, and Dara was the one who suggested the doctor on the hill.” His smile softens. “I was skeptical, of course. There are healers and such in the town, and Chanyeol was in no shape to walk up a mountain. But she said there was no more talented doctor on the island and that if I wanted my quartermaster to continue to have use of both legs, I’d best make the trip.”

He’s never heard this story before, and Yixing can do nothing but stare as Joonmyun tells it, for the first time thinking about what that night must have been from the other side.

“You opened the door in your nightshirt and dressing-gown, so obviously having just been roused.” Joonmyun chuckles. “And I thought for a moment I’d gotten the wrong house, that I’d hauled Chanyeol painfully up the mountain for nothing, because how could this handsome, dreamy-eyed man, half-asleep and so _young_ , be the doctor I was looking for? The way you’d been described to me, I was expecting a much older man, stately and stern in powdered wig and frock coat. But you were everything they said and more, and you saved him.” Joonmyun turns his body a little, so that he is facing Yixing, and takes both Yixing’s hands in his own. “That night I accrued a debt to you that I have never managed to repay. Instead I come to you like a beggar, over and over again, and you care for me and mine every time with no thought whatsoever to yourself. Yixing, I…” His eyes flutter closed. “I’m sorry. My debt to you grows with every passing day and I fear I may _never_ be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me.”

Yixing is not sure he remembers how to breathe. His heart hurts, and his throat is tight, and his eyes burn yet again with tears, and with Joon staring at him like this, looking Yixing in the eyes with the kind of reverent awe one usually reserves for an angel, he finally throws propriety entirely to the wind and finds his voice.

“I love you,” he blurts out.

A blink of shocked silence. Then, slowly and beautifully, Joonmyun smiles, stretching softly across his face as Yixing’s heart threatens to leap out of his chest.

“I know.”

Oh.

Wait.

_What?_

Yixing stares. “What do you mean, _you know?_ ”

“It’s not the first time you’ve told me,” Joonmyun admits. “The first time was months ago, when you were delirious. And you said it again, last month, when you were concussed.”

His stomach drops into his shoes, and shame heats his already sun-flushed cheeks. “You’ve known,” he spits out incredulously. “This whole time I’ve been killing myself with this shameful secret and _you knew all along?_ ”

Joonmyun finally picks up on the upset in his tone. His eyes widen, and his fingers tighten in Yixing’s. “Xing, I’m _sorry_ , but what could I say?” he reasons. “You were out of your mind with illness both times, and you never remembered. I didn’t even think you really _meant_ it - for all I knew you were seeing your _mother_ or someone in your mind.”

Yixing yanks his hands away and stands, agitation making his legs move without his input. “Well, now you know,” he snaps. “I meant it. And since you never took it seriously before I suppose that gives me my answer.” He turns his back, intending to start down the other side of the mountain towards home, because he _hurts_ and he can’t even stand to look at Joon right at this moment.

He doesn’t get very far. Strong fingers wrap painfully around his sunburnt wrist and yank him around, and the next thing Yixing knows, Joonmyun’s lips descend upon his own and they’re kissing, and kissing _hard_.

Yixing has never kissed a man. He has been kissed _by_ women, but that is the extent of it, and this is different. This is _very_ different. Joonmyun kisses the way Yixing thinks a pirate should, with a strong grip around the small of Yixing’s back, holding him tightly and bending him back with the passion of it. Yixing stiffens in shock at first but quickly gives in, because even if he’s upset and he has no idea what’s going on in Joon’s head he _wants_ this. He reaches up to anchor himself on Joon’s shoulders, fingers digging into wet linen, and Joon makes a quiet, hungry noise and presses his tongue gently and insistently in between Yixing’s lips. Yixing whines softly and lets him in, as if he could ever refuse Joonmyun anything, clumsily but eagerly kissing him back. 

Joonmyun pulls away with a gasp, dropping his forehead against Yixing’s while he pants for air. “There,” he murmurs breathlessly, “you idiotic man, _there’s_ your bloody answer. _I love you._ I’ve known it since you first fell sick, and I should have told you the moment you woke up.”

Yixing has questions, he has concerns, he knows it can’t possibly be this easy. But right at this moment, sunburnt and sandy and damp and standing on a mountaintop looking over the Caribbean sea at sunset, he doesn’t want to care. He doesn’t want to be reasonable and responsible. He just wants to keep kissing Joonmyun for as long as the older man will let him.

So he does, balling his hands in the distractingly open collar of Joon’s soaked white shirt and pulling him in. The possessive snarl Joon utters as he immediately turns the tables, pushing Yixing until his back presses against a nearby tree, send a dark and forbidden thrill all down Yixing’s body. He whimpers in a distinctly unmanly fashion and melts, letting Joon ravish his mouth, and then quickly his jawline and ear and neck, teeth and tongue and lips on his skin. He’s hardening more rapidly and completely than he can ever remember, helpless against the onslaught, and though he tries to keep his hips back when he finally gets his head enough to run his tongue up Joon’s salty, sandy and strong neck, Joon’s own hips jerk forward and connect with his. The unexpected shock of heady pleasure has them both crying out, and Yixing stills, staring at Joon with wide eyes.

“You alright?” Joon murmurs, and the overprotective familiarity of it has Yixing’s heart twisting in his chest, like a puppy rolling enthusiastically on sun-soaked grass.

“I’m confused,” Yixing admits, “and a little conflicted. But I want this. I want _you_.” He bites his lip. “Can we go home?”

He intends it to mean more than the words are saying, and when Joonmyun catches his meaning, his eyes darken noticeably.

“Lead the way,” he murmurs, his fingers sliding into Yixing’s.

 

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 

July seventh falls on an overcast and dreary Wednesday morning, and when the knock comes at Yixing’s door, he opens it in his nightshirt and dressing gown with red swollen eyes. Baekhyun is on the doorstep, and behind him what looks to be the majority of the crew. To a man, they look at him in earnest hope.

“I’m sorry,” Yixing says hoarsely. “I thought my last letter would have gotten to you on time, but I see it did not. I’m afraid your Captain relapsed.”

More than half a dozen faces fall as what he is saying sinks in.

“Is he…?” Baekhyun asks, craning his neck to see around Yixing and into the house.

Yixing shakes his head, tears welling in his eyes. “It hit too fast,” he whispers, “and there was no more cinchona to be found. I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry.”

Baekhyun’s face goes white. Jongin, at his elbow, starts to cry; Luhan is not far behind him. They all look _devastated_ , and Yixing can’t take it anymore. He pushes the door open the rest of the way.

“Gotcha, you gullible bastards,” Joonmyun says with a grin.

Dead silence of utter _shock_. Then they’re all yelling at once, some in jubilation and some in anger, and Jongin’s launched himself forward and is latched around his Captain’s neck, and both Yixing and Joonmyun are laughing so hard they can barely stand.

“You fear-mongering son of a devil, you’re lucky Kris is with the ship,” Baekhyun tells Joonmyun over the din. He yanks Jongin off and pulls his Captain into a hard embrace. “He’d thump you good for a stunt like that. My _God_ , it’s good to see you.”

Yixing backs up, leaving Joonmyun to reunite with his crew, and ducks back into his room to change into proper clothes. He folds his nightclothes and dressing-gown carefully and sets them in his open trunk, the last things he needs for his journey. Closing the lid, Yixing locks it and drops the chain on which the key hangs around his neck.

Joonmyun has extracted himself from his crewmates, and stands in the doorway in full piratical costume, complete with sword and hat. “Are you ready?” he asks, and Yixing nods. Joon pulls him close and presses a sweetly possessive kiss to his lips before calling over his shoulder for his crew.

“Come on, ya dogs,” he yells good-naturedly. “We need to haul the Doctor’s things to the ship.”

Baekhyun ambles into the house, regarding them curiously. “He’s coming with us?” There’s no malice, no judgement in his gaze when he sees Yixing pressed so intimately against his Captain’s side, and Joonmyun had assured Yixing that there wouldn’t be but Yixing lets out a long breath of relief anyway.

“Aye,” Joonmyun says, tightening his grip on Yixing’s waist with a conspiratorial wink to his first mate. “He’s my plunder for this adventure.” Baekhyun’s eyebrows disappear up under his ridiculous hat and Yixing laughs, a little self-conscious but mostly just happy.

Chanyeol’s head pops up over Baekhyun’s shoulder. “I believe this means you owe me twenty shillings,” the quartermaster rumbles with a familiar manic grin, and Baekhyun looks a bit put out by that, but not as put out as Joonmyun.

“Park Chanyeol, were you _betting_ on my love life?”

Chanyeol’s grin widens. “No one knows you like we do, Cap’n,” he points out, and it seems Joonmyun doesn’t have much to say about that, but his grip on Yixing tightens almost painfully, and Yixing knows him well enough to see he is touched. “Now, someone said something about haulin’?”

In the end, Chanyeol and Tao get the chest of books and medical supplies, as it is the heavier of the two, while Xiumin and Jongin take the chest of clothes and personal possessions. Once they are outside and begun down the mountain, Yixing takes a quick turn through his house, checking to be certain he is leaving nothing behind. The majority of the smaller items have been sold down at market over the past few weeks, leaving only the furniture and a few essentials; the house itself has been sold as it currently is to a young Dutch couple who are looking to start a life and a family outside of the bustle and danger of the city below. Yixing locks the door behind him and leaves the key under a rock next to the stoop, right where he told them it would be. This little house has served him well for six years, but it’s time now to move on and start something new.

The crew starts down the mountain in high spirits, singing and talking and laughing, and Yixing and Joonmyun follow, hand in hand.


End file.
